The Tomb Of Tut Ankh Amen Vjol I

THE TOMB OF
TUT-ANKHAMEN

DISCOVERED BY THE LATE EARL OF
CARNARVON AND HOWARD CARTER

By

HOWARD CARTER

AND

A. C. MACE

(Associate Curator , Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York)

Volume I

With 104 Illustrations from Photographs by

HARRY BURTON

(Of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York)

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, Toronto, Melbourne and Sydney

First published November 1923
Second Impression October 1926

Printed in Great Britain

THE TOMB OF TUT ANKH AMEN

THE LATE EARL OF CARNARVON.

From a Photograph fcp F. ]. Mortimer , F.R.P.S.

EJeMcation

With the full sympathy of my collaborator ,
Mr. Mace , I dedicate this account of the discovery
of the tomb of Tut •ankh* Amen to the memory of
my beloved friend and colleague

LORD CARNARVON

who died in the hour of his triumph.

But for his untiring generosity and constant
encouragement our labours could never have been
crowned with success. His judgment in ancient
art has rarely been equalled. His efforts , which
have done so much to extend our knowledge of
Egyptology , will ever be honoured in history , and
by me his memory will always be cherished .

PREFACE

T nS narrative of the discovery of the tomb of
Tut- ankh- Amen is merely preliminary : a final
record of purely scientific nature will take
some time, nor can it be adequately made until
the work of investigation of the tomb and its vast
material has been completed. Nevertheless, in view
of the public interest in our discovery, we felt that
some account without loss of time, no matter how
summary, was necessary, and that is the reason for
the publication of this book.

We have here for the first time, a royal burial
very little disturbed in spite of the hurried plun-
dering it has suffered at the hands of the ancient
tomb-robbers, and within the shrines of the tomb-
chamber I believe the Pharaoh lies intact, in all
his royal magnificence.

It has been suggested by certain Egyptologists
that we should write up in the summer, and publish
at once, all we have done in the winter. But there
is, outside the stress of work and other duties, a
strong reason against this. Our work will take several
seasons of concentrated labour on our discovery — the
tomb, of the contents of which we are making as
faithful a record as possible. If, following the advice
of our critics, we were to write up our progress in
detail before our work could be collated in its entirety,
mistakes would necessarily creep in which, when once
made, would be hard to rectify. We therefore ven-

vii

Preface

ture to hope that the method we have adopted is
more in the interest of scientific accuracy, and less
likely to give rise to erroneous impressions. Nor are
warnings wanting against undue haste. For instance,
we bear in mind the vault containing the cache of
Akh*en-Aten found in this Valley. The account of this
important and interesting discovery was hurriedly
published and announced as the tomb of Queen Tyi,
whereas, after more careful investigation, only one
object in that magnificent find, the so-called canopy,
which apparently had had an extraordinary influence
on the minds of its discoverers and recorders, could
be claimed as possibly belonging to that queen. Such
mistakes as these we wish to avoid. Moreover, as we
have as yet seen only one quarter of the contents of
this tomb, in this preliminary account we venture to
claim the indulgence of the reader. He will under-
stand that it must be subject to possible future cor-
rection in accordance with the nature of facts revealed
by the further progress of our work.

When, by the dim light of a candle, we made the
first cursory examination of the Antechamber, we
thought that one of the caskets (No. 101) contained
rolls of papyri. But, later, under the rays of a power-
ful electric light, these proved to be rolls of linen,
which had even then some resemblance to rolls of
papyri. This was naturally disappointing, and gave
rise to the suggestion that the historical harvest,
compared with the artistic value of our discovery,
will be unimportant because of the lack of literary
evidence concerning King Tut-ankh-Amen and the
political confusion of his time.

It has also been argued that these chambers do
not represent the actual tomb of the king but that

viii

Preface

Hor-em-heb, Tut-ankh-Amen’s second successor, had
probably usurped his real tomb and hurriedly placed
his furniture in the chambers of this vault. Nor is
this all. It has also been said that it was merely a
cache, and further it has even more improbably been
conjectured that the objects found therein were a col-
lection of palace furniture, belonging to the dynasty,
and hidden there as Tut- ankh- Amen was the last of
that royal line, and that of these many were of
Mesopotamian origin. I may perhaps be pardoned
for here observing that these criticisms have been
advanced by authors who have never seen the tomb,
let alone its contents.

Now in reply to these objections I would here say
that so far as we have gone we have found nothing
that should not belong to the funerary equipment
of the king. All the objects are in perfect keeping
with the evidence and knowledge gleaned from the
fragmentary material of the royal tombs of the New
Empire discovered in this Valley, and they are in
every way pure late Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian.

That this discovery is the real tomb of Tut*
ankh- Amen, there can, I think, be no doubt, but
it must be remembered that, like the tomb of Ay,
his immediate successor, it is of semi-royal and semi-
private type. In fact it is rather the sepulchre
of a possible heir to the throne than that of a
king.

A comparison of the tomb plan with that of the
tombs of the kings’ mothers, the kings’ wives, and
the kings’ children, in The Valley of the Queens, and
with the tombs of his predecessors and successors in
The Valley of the Kings will, I think, show this.

From its style of work and certain idiosyncrasies

Preface

observable, it is not improbable that it was made
by the same hand as the vault that contained the
transported burial of Akh*en*Aten which is in its near
vicinity. The plan of that vault closely resembles
the tomb of Tut* ankh* Amen, and both are alike
variants of the plan and principles of the tombs of
the Theban monarchs of the Empire. The apparent
curtailment of design in the Akh*en*Aten vault — it
having alone the one completed chamber — was prob-
ably due to its being made for a cache to receive
nothing but the revered mummy with a few
essentials belonging to its burial. It may be for that
reason that we find only the first chamber — the
Antechamber — prepared and plastered to receive
those remains. It should also be noticed that in the
right hand wall of this one chamber the ancient
Egyptian mason commenced a second room, which
now, in its incomplete state, suggests a niche ; but on
comparing it with the grave of Tut* ankh* Amen the
idea and the intention become obvious — it was to be
a sepulchral hall. In other words, in the design
there is a certain affinity with the tomb of Akh*
en*Aten at El Amarna, and the vault devised for a
cache in this Valley for that so-called heretic king,
and also with the tombs of Tut* ankh* Amen and Ay,
which is peculiar to that El Amarna branch of the
Dynasty. With them we also find the finest art of
the Imperial Age in Egypt, and also the germ of its
decadence which made itself manifest in the succeed-
ing Nineteenth Dynasty.

It was King Ay, Tut-ankh-Amen’s successor, who
buried our monarch, for there, on the inner walls of
Tut*ankh*Amen’s tomb-chamber, Ay, as king has
caused himself to be represented among the religious

Preface

scenes, officiating before Tut-ankh-Amen — a scene
unprecedented in the royal tombs of this necropolis.

It were, perhaps, well at this point to say some-
thing concerning the mentality of the ancient Egypt-
ians as manifested in their art, which is closely
associated with their religion. If we study the ancient
Egyptian religious ideas we may be absorbed by the
curious medley of their mythology, yet in the end we
shall feel that we have progressed beyond them. But
if once we have acquired the power of admiring and
understanding their art, we do not, for the most part,
entertain this assurance of aesthetic progress and
superiority. Perhaps we may do so in minor details,
but no sensible person will ever imagine that he has
got beyond the essentials their art embodies. We
cannot with all our progress get beyond those
essentials. Egyptian art expresses its aim in a
stately and simple convention, and is thus dignified
by its own sedateness, and was never wanting in
reverence.

No doubt lack of perspective in their art implies
limitation, therefore not a little must be surrendered
to this limitation, but within its convention the best
Egyptian art embodies refinement, embodies love of
simplicity, patience in execution, and never descends
to an unideal copy of nature. Simplicity is the sign
of greatness in art, and the Egyptians never strove
to be original or to be sensational. Within the
trammels of his convention the ancient Egyptian
looked at nature through his own eyes and thus
character was imparted alone by his subjective per-
sonality, whether from a religious or aesthetic point
of view. It is for this reason that Egyptian por-
traiture to the untrained eye often appears to have

Preface

a certain sameness and even monotony. This, how-
ever, is really due to the convention of the epoch,
whereby individual traits were softened in accordance
with the ideals of the Egyptian convention. These
facts are manifested by the material in the tomb of
Tut* ankh* Amen. We are astounded by the immense
productivity of the art of its period which it contains,
but in studying it, a somewhat unexpected aspect of
the character and domestic tastes of the king is sug-
gested. Tut*ankh*Amen’s tastes seem to have been
rather those of a nobleman than those associated
with the religious and official art dominant in this
royal Theban cemetery. In the art of his tomb it
is the domestic affection and solar tendency that are
the dominant ideas, rather than the austere religious
convention that characterizes all the other royal
tombs in this Valley.

Among the immense quantities of material
in Tut-ankh-Amen’s tomb, as also exhibited in
the beautiful reliefs of his reign in the great colon-
nade of the Temple of Luxor, we find extreme
delicacy of style together with character of the ut-
most refinement. In the case of a painted scene,
vase, or statue, the primary idea of art is obvious,
but in utilitarian objects such as a walking-stick,
staff or wine-strainer, art, as we know too well
to-day, is not a necessity. Here in this tomb the
artistic value seems to have been always the first
consideration.

This is scarcely the place to discuss the question
of ancient Egyptian art, as the book deals mainly
with the actual finding of the tomb. But The Valley
cannot be overlooked, and it will be helpful to include
some general statements upon its impressive history,

xii

Preface

as well as to record certain unexpected events to
which the discovery gave rise.

After so many years of barren labour a sudden
development of great magnitude finds one unpre-
pared. One is, for instance, confronted by the
question of adequate and competent assistance. In
this case the help needed obviously included the all
important recording, photographing, planning, and
the preservation of the objects — the latter demanding
chemical knowledge. But the first and most pressing
need was that of photography and drawing. Nothing
could be contemplated until a full pictorial record
of the contents of the Antechamber had been made.
This must not only include photographs of the
general disposition of the objects therein, and the
order of their sequence, but must afterwards be
followed by diagrammatic drawings showing relative
positions as seen from above — a task involving not
only photographic skill of a high order but also
that of an experienced surveyor. Then came the
consideration of their preservation, their removal,
and their description — the work of a chemist, of a
man experienced in the handling of antiquities, and
finally of an archaeologist.

This problem was quickly solved through the
generosity of our colleagues of the American Expedi-
tion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New
York. In answer to my appeal my most esteemed
friend and colleague, Mr. A. M. Lythgoe, the Curator
of the Egyptian Department of that museum, whose
kind offer was subsequently most generously con-
firmed by his trustees and director, cabled and placed
at my disposal, to the detriment of their own work,
such members of their staff as might be required.

xiii

Preface

For such luck as this I had not dared to hope.
It included the services of Mr. A. C. Mace, one of
their associate curators, of Mr. Harry Burton, their
expert photographic recorder, to whom the photo-
graphs in this volume are due, and of Messrs. Hall
and Hauser, draftsmen to their expedition — a group
of very able field-men and all of wide archaeological
knowledge. And let me here place on record the
sacrifice that Mr. Mace, the director of their excava-
tions on the pyramid field at Lisht, made in our
interests, which meant the abandonment of his many
years of research work at Lisht, and I should add
that the preparation of this book has fallen largely
on his shoulders. At the same time I must express
our most sincere and grateful thanks to the trustees
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, to
their director, Mr. Edward Robinson, to Mr. Lythgoe,
and also to Mr. H. E. Winlock, whose expedition
for them at Thebes was thus considerably denuded.

While in Cairo another stroke of good luck
occurred. Mr. Lucas, Director of the Chemical
Department of the Egyptian Government, for the
moment free of his official duties, offered us the
valuable aid of his chemical knowledge.

Previous to this, when I realized the probable
magnitude of the discovery, Mr. A. R. Callender at
Erment, who had often assisted me on former occasions,
at once came to my aid. Dr. Alan Gardiner also
very kindly placed his unrivalled philological know-
ledge at our disposal. Moreover, Professor James H.
Breasted, of the University of Chicago, the eminent
historian of ancient Egypt, then in Egypt, gave me
his valued advice and enlightened me upon the
historical data and evidence of the seal-impressions

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Preface

on the four sealed doorways found in various condi-
tions in the tomb.

Throughout the whole of this undertaking we
received the utmost courtesy and kindness from all
the officials connected with the Department of Antiqu-
ities of the Egyptian Government, and I herewith
desire to express the acknowledgment due to Monsieur
Lacau, Directeur General au Service des Antiquit£s.
And here I may mention how much I am indebted
to the members of The Times staff for all their ready
co-operation in all matters, even those outside the
sphere of their own interests.

My appreciative thanks are also due to Lady
Burghclere, Lord Carnarvon’s devoted sister, for the
biographical introduction which she has so kindly
contributed, for no one could have been better fitted
to carry out this task.

I must also thank my dear friend Mr. Percy
White, the novelist, Professor of English Literature
in the Egyptian University, for his ungrudging
literary help.

Lastly I should like to express my recognition
of the services of my Egyptian staff of workmen
who have loyally and conscientiously carried out
every duty which I entrusted to them. The
letter, on p. xv, which, in its quaint English,
shows their zeal during my absence, should per-
haps go on record.

Howard Carter.

August , 1923.

CONTENTS

FAOE

Introduction. Biographical Sketch of the late

Lord Carnarvon. By Lady Burghclere . 1

CHAFTER

1. The King and the Queen .... 41

2. The Valley and the Tomb .... 50

3. The Valley in Modern Times ... 63

4. Our Prefatory Work at Thebes ... 75

5. The Finding of the Tomb .... 86

6. A Preliminary Investigation .... 97

7. A Survey of the Antechamber . . . 110

8. Clearing the Antechamber . . . .123

9. Visitors and the Press 141

10. Work in the Laboratory .... 151

11. The Opening of the Sealed Door . . 178

Appendix 189

Index 225

B

LIST OF PLATES

The Late Earl of Carnarvon .... Frontispiece

PLATE FACING PAGE

I Statue of King Tut-ankh-Amen .... 42

II Back Panel of the Throne 46

III Road to the Tombs of the Kings ... 50

IV View of the Royal Cemetery .... 58

V Entrance to the Tomb of Rameses VI . . .64

VI Interior of the Tomb of Rameses IX . . .68

VII Interior of the Tomb of Rameses IV : showing the

Sarcophagus 72

VIII View showing position of Hat-shep-SQt's Cleft-Tomb 80

IX Removing surface debris in search of the Tomb of

Tut-ankh-Amen 82

X Example of the Workmen’s Huts found above the

Tomb 84

XI View of the Relative positions of the Tombs of

Tut-ankh-Amen and Rameses VI . .86

XII Entrance to the Tomb as first seen ... 88

XIII The Sixteen Steps 90

XIV Examples of Seal Impressions .... 94

XV View of the Antechamber, as seen from the Passage

through the Steel Grille 96

XVI Interior of Antechamber : Northern End . . 98

XVII Interior of Antechamber : The Lion-headed Couch . 102

XVIII Interior of Antechamber: The Hathor Couch . 104

xix

List of Plates

PLATE FACING

XIX Interior of Antechamber : Southern End showing
the Thoueris Couch and the Chariots .

XX Interior of Antechamber : The Entrance with Steel
Gate

XXI Painted Casket (No. 21) in situ
XXII Cluster of Alabaster Vases ....

XXIII (A) The King's Sceptre of Gold and Lapis Lazuli

Blue Glass ......

(B) Two Sistra of Wood, Gilt and Bronze

XXIV Throne and Footstool beneath the Thoueris

Couch

XXV The King's Mannequin

XXVI View of the Chariots, illustrating Process of
Clearing

XXVII Funerary Bouquet

XXVIII Thoueris Couch

XXIX Pedestal of Missing Statuette in the Small Golden
Shrine

XXX Plunderers' Loot (Eight gold rings tied in a Scarf)

XXXI Visitors above the Tomb

XXXII Thoueris Couch being taken out of Tomb.

XXXIII Convoy of Antiquities to the Laboratory .

XXXIV Painted Casket No. 21 : Showing the unpacking.

First and second stages

XXXV Painted Casket No. 21 : Third and fourth stages
XXXVI The King's Court Sandal and Slipper

(A) The Buckle of Sandal in elaborate Gold

Work

(B) The Sandal

(C) The Slipper of Leather ....

PAGE

106

108

110

114

116

116

118

120

124

126

132

136

138

142

144

148

164

166

168

168

168

168

xx

List of Plates

PLATE FACING

XXXVII Box No. 54. View of Interior

XXXVIII Reconstruction of Corslet ....

XXXIX (A) Collar Resting on Lid of Box No. 54. (B)
Reconstruction of the Collar

XL Necklace restrung in original Order .

XLI Sentinel Figures guarding the Sealed Doorway to
the Sepulchral Chamber .

XLII Sealed Doorway to the Sepulchral Chamber show-
ing the Re-closing of the Plunderers' Hole .

XL I II The Opening of the Sealed Doorway to Sepulchral
Chamber. Carnarvon and Carter .

XLIV The Opening of the Sealed Doorway to Sepulchral
Chamber. Carter and Mace

XLV The Shrine within the Sepulchre.

XL VI The King's Wishing Cup in Alabaster (Calcite) of
Lotiform .......

XLVII Alabaster (Calcite) Perfume Vase Resting upon an
Ornamental Stand

XLVIII Alabaster (Calcite) Perfume Vase Resting upon a
Trellis-work Pedestal

XLIX (A) One of the King's Beds carved in solid Ebony
with String Mesh

(B) The Open-work Foot Panel of Ebony, Ivory,
and Gold .......

L Scene in Miniature Painting upon the right-hand
side of the Lid of the Painted Casket (No. 21)

LI Scene in Miniature Painting upon the left-hand
side of the Lid of the Painted Caskets
(No. 21)

LII Scene in Miniature Painting upon the left side Panel
of the Painted Casket. (No. 21) .
xxi

PAGE

170

172

174

176

178

180

182

184

186

190

191

192

193

193

194

195

196

List of Plates

PLATE PACINO

LIII Scene in Miniature Painting upon the right panel of
the Painted Gasket. (No. 21)

LIV Scenes upon the Front (A) and Back (B) Panels of the
Painted Casket. (No. 21)

LV Large Cedar-wood Casket Inlaid and Veneered with
Ebony and Ivory. (No. 32) ...

LVI (A) An Alabaster (Calcite) Casket (No. 40) .

(B) Decorated Gilt Casket

LVII (A) A Solid Ivory Jewel Box (No. 54 ddd) .

(B) Back of the Box ......

LVIII A Large Vaulted-Top Box (No. 101) .

LIX A Child’s Chair (No. 39)

LX A Carved Cedar-wood Chair (No. 87) .

LXI The Open-work Panel of the back of the Carved
Cedar-wood Chair

LXII The King’s Golden Throne (No. 91)

LXIII The King’s Golden Throne (No. 91) .

LXFV The King’s Golden Throne (No. 91)

LXV (A) A Large Pendant Scarab of Gold and Lapis
Lazuli Blue Glass

(B) Bezel of Scarab

(C) A Gold Pendant ......

(D) The Chased Back of the Pendant .

LXVI (A) The Central Pectoral of the Corslet

(B) The Back Pendant of the Corslet of Gold Richly
Inlaid

LXVII (A) Seven Finger-rings and an Ornamental Finger-
ring Bezel

(B) Gold Buckles of Open-work Sheet Gold, with
Applied Pattern in Tiny Granules .

PACE

197

198

199

200
200
201
201
202

203

204

205

206

207

208

209

209

209

209

210

210

211

211

xxu

List of Plates

FLATS PACINO

LXVIII The Small Golden Shrine ....

LXIX Two Ceremonial Walking-Sticks covered with
thin Gold Foil

LXX A Ceremonial Walking-Stick ....

LXXI A Staff and Stick

LXXII Sticks and Whips with Ornamental Handles in Gold
Work .......

LXXI II Two Stools

LXX IV Two Stools

LXXV Torch and Torch-holders of Bronze and Gold upon
Wooden Pedestals

LXXVI Three of the King’s Bows ....
LXXVII Three of the King’s Bows ....
LXXVIII Textiles of Applied Needlework
LXXIX Examples of the King’s Gloves

Sketch-Plan of the Tomb

MSI

212

213

214

215

216

217

218

219

220
221
222
222

223

xxiii

INTRODUCTION

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE LATE
LORD CARNARVON

By Lady Burghclere

I F it is true that the whole world loves a lover,
it is also true that either openly or secretly the
world loves Romance. Hence, doubtless, the
passionate and farflung interest aroused by the dis-
covery of Tut-ankh-Amen’s tomb, an interest ex-
tended to the discoverer, and certainly not lessened
by the swift tragedy that waited on his brief hour of
triumph. A story that opens like Aladdin’s Cave,
and ends like a Greek myth of Nemesis cannot fail
to capture the imagination of all men and women
who, in this workaday existence, can still be moved
by tales of high endeavour and unrelenting doom.
Let it be gratefully acknowledged by those to whom
Carnarvon’s going must remain an ever-enduring
sorrow, that the sympathy displayed equalled the
excitement evoked by the revelations in The
Valley of the Kings. It is in thankful response
to that warm-hearted sympathy that this slight
sketch of a many-sided personality, around whom
such emotions have centred, finds place here as intro-
duction to the history of that discovery to which
the discoverer so eagerly devoted his energies and
ultimately sacrificed his life.

Introduction

To those who knew Lord Carnarvon, there is a
singular fitness in the fact that he should have been
the hero of one of the most dramatic episodes of the
present day, since under the quiet exterior of this
reticent Englishman, beat, in truth, a romantic
heart. The circumstances of his life had undoubtedly
fostered the natural bent of his character. Born on
June 26th, 1866, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux
Herbert, Lord Porchester, enjoyed the inestimable
privilege of being reared in an atmosphere coloured
by romance and permeated by a fine simplicity.
Nor was he less happy in his outward surroundings.
Even when matched against the many “ stately
homes of England,” Highclere must rank as a domain
of rare beauty. Much of its charm is due to its
contrasted scenery. From the close-cropped lawns,
shaded by giant cedars of Lebanon, where in a past
century Pope sat and discoursed with his friend,
Robert Caroline Herbert, the godson and namesake
of George IPs queen, the transition is brief to thickets
of hawthorn, woods of beech and oak, and lakes,
the happy haunts of wildfowl ; while all around stand
the high downs either densely timbered or as bare
and wild as when the Britons built their camp of
refuge on Beacon Hill, the great chalk bastion that
dominates the country-side. To children nurtured on
Arthurian legends it needed little mental effort to
translate the woodlands, where they galloped their
ponies, into the Forest of Broceliande, or the old
monkish fishponds, where they angled for pike and
gathered water-lilies, into that magic mere which
swallowed up the good blade Excalibur ; whilst a
mound rising from a distant gravel-pit merely re-
quired the drawbridge, erected by the obliging house

Introduction

carpenter across its surrounding trickle of water, to
become Tintagel.

If, as any Catholic priest would assure us, the
indelible impressions on the human mind are those
stamped in the earliest years, Porchester graduated
in a school of Romance and Adventure. Moreover,
hereditary influences combined with environment to
give an individual outlook on life. The son of two
high-minded parents who were ever striving to give
practical effect to their ideals for the benefit of others,
there was nothing to unlearn in the early education.
Indeed, it can confidently be asserted that, throughout
his childhood, the curly-headed little boy neither
heard nor witnessed anything that “ common was
or mean.” The village, the household, were members
of the family. It was the feudal, the patriarchal
system at its best, the dreams of “ Young England ”
realized. For the law that governed the community
at Highclere was the law of kindness, though kind-
ness that permitted no compromise with moral laxity.
An amusing commentary on the standards recog-
nized as governing — or at any rate expected to govern
— home life, was furnished on one occasion by the
children’s nurse. One of her nurslings, thoroughly
scared by the blood-curdling descriptions of Hell,
and Hell-fire, contained in a horrible little religious
primer, “ The Peep o’ Day ” (now mercifully dis-
carded by later generations) administered to her by
an injudicious governess, naturally turned to the
beloved “ Nana ” for consolation. She did not seek
in vain. “ Don’t worry, dearie, over such tales,”
said the good old woman, “ no one from Highclere
Castle will ever go to Hell ! ”

By common consent, Porchester’s father, the

3

Introduction

fourth Earl of Carnarvon, was regarded as a states-
man who had never allowed ambition to deflect him
by a hair’s breadth from the path mapped out by a
meticulous conscience. But although he had re-
signed from the Derby-Disraeli Government rather
than support the Franchise Bill of 1867, he was the
reverse of a reactionary. Both in imperial and social
schemes he was far in advance of most of his con-
temporaries on both sides in politics. Indeed, it is
interesting to speculate how much of blood and
treasure would have been spared to this country if
the measures and judgment of this truly Conserva-
tive statesman had commanded the support of the
Cabinets and party with which he was connected.
Little boys are not interested in politics — except in
lighting bonfires to celebrate successful elections —
but whatever are the eventual developments, en-
vironment and heredity are the bedrock whence
character is hewn. The fifth Earl of Carnarvon —
the archaeologist — in his physical and mental “ make-
up,” to use the modern phrase, did not recall his
father. But it was from the latter that he inherited
the quality of independent thought, coupled with an
extreme pleasure in putting his mind alongside that
of other men. Moreover, the power of scholarly
concentration which he brought to bear on the many
and varied subjects in which he was interested, was
certainly part of the paternal heritage, for the fourth
Earl was one of the finest classical scholars of his
generation. Indeed, there are those still living who
can bear witness to his faultless Latin oration as
Viceroy at Trinity College, Dublin, and remember his
admission, when pressed, that he could as easily
have made the speech in Greek.

4

Introduction

In 1875 a shadow fell across the boy’s life. His
mother died after giving birth to a third daughter.
The shadow was destined to be enduring, since
Evelyn Stanhope, Lady Carnarvon, was one of
those rare women who are in the world and yet
not of it, and the want of her clever sympathy
was a lifelong loss to Porchester. His whimsical
wit and her keen sense of humour were made for
mutual understanding. She would have helped him
to overcome the ingrained reserve, which it needed
the action of years to wear away, at the outset
interpreting an unusual character to the world, and
the world to her son.

Even when the surviving parent is as devoted a
father as was Lord Carnarvon, it is perhaps unavoid-
able that the mother’s death should bring an element
of austerity into children’s lives, though it also
tends, as it certainly did in this instance, to tighten
the links between brother and sisters. After their
mother’s death, Porchester, or “ Porchy ” as he was
then habitually called, and the little girls were,
however, unspeakably blessed in the devoted affec-
tion lavished upon them by their father’s sisters
Lady Gwendolen Herbert and Eveline, Lady Ports-
mouth. The former was a delicate invalid around
whose sofa young and old clustered, secure of sym-
pathy in sorrow or in joy. The fact that an unhappy
chance had cheated her of her share of youth’s fun
and gaiety made her the more intent on securing
these for the motherless children, in whose lives she
realized her own life. She was the natural inter-
preter when vengeance threatened to follow on
chemical experiments resulting in semi-asphyxiating
and wholly malodorous vapours, or when excursions

5

Introduction

amongst water-taps sent cataracts of water down the
Vandycks. The schoolroom discipline of the ’seventies
was not conceived on Montessori lines. The extreme
mildness of Lady Gwendolen’s rule did not always
commend itself to tutors and governesses. They
recalled that a spear, which at his earnest entreaty
she had bestowed on Porchy, was fleshed in a valuable
engraving ; while another of her gifts, a large saw,
was regarded as so dangerous that it became “ tabu ”
and hung suspended by a broad blue ribbon, a curious
ornament on the schoolroom wall. Nor can it be
denied that to present a small boy with half-a-crown
to console him for breaking a window is a homoeo-
pathic method of education, which would excite
protests from pastors and teachers of any age. But
despite her unfailing indulgence, her influence was
never enervating. It is what we are, not our sayings,
and still less our scoldings, that count with those
keen-eyed critics, the younger generation. Naughti-
ness in Gwendolen’s neighbourhood was unthinkable.
In her own person she so endeared the quality of
gentleness — not a virtue always popular with the
young qf the male sex — that Porchy’s sisters and
small half brothers never suffered from roughness
at his hands. A tease he was, a terrific tease then
and to the end of life, in sober middle-age getting
the same rapture from a “ rise ” out of his
Mends or family as a fifth-form school boy. But
the strand of gentleness that ran through his nature
was not its least attaching quality, fostered in those
early days by the one effectual method of education,
the example of those we love.

Long years afterwards when her nephew laid
Lady Gwendolen to rest at Highclere, he reverted

6

Introduction

with grateful tenderness to the memories, the lessons
of that selfless love. “ What a blank,” he wrote,
would the absence of “ that little figure in grey ”
mean to him at the family gatherings, the christenings,
the weddings, where her presence carried him back
to all the lovely memories of childhood.

Never robust, it is doubtful whether Lord Car-
narvon would have accomplished even his brief span
of life but for the part played in his boyhood by
Lady Portsmouth and her home, Eggesford, which,
became his second home. The England of the
’seventies was still an age of hermetically closed
windows, overheated rooms, comforters and — worst
horror of all — respirators. Fortunately for the boy,
Lady Portsmouth, a pioneer in many phases of work
and thought, was a strenuous advocate of open air.
The delicate, white-faced child, after a couple of
months spent in hunting and out-of-door games with
the tribe of cousins in North Devon, was transformed
into a hardy young sportsman. At Eggesford horses
and hounds were as much the foreground of life as
politics and books at Highclere. “ Mr. Sponge’s
Sporting Tour ” replaced “ Marmion,” though it was
“ The Talisman ” and “ Ivanhoe ” that Lady Ports-
mouth read aloud to the family in the cherished
evening hour, the climax of the busy, happy day at
Eggesford. Different as the two houses might appear,
they were, however, alike in essentials. They owned
the same ethics, they acknowledged the same stan-
dards. Highclere could not be called conventional.
But Eggesford, in a country which before the advent
of the motor preserved much of the flavour of the
past, was distinctly unconventional. The meets
brought into the field a motley assembly of men,

7

Introduction

boys, horses and ponies, such as probably outside
Ireland could have been collected in no other comer
of the United Kingdom. Of these not the least
individual figure was Lord Portsmouth, probably the
most popular M.F.H. in England. Seldom, indeed,
can goodwill to men of goodwill have been more
clearly writ large on a human countenance than
on this great gentleman’s, whose very raciness of
expression only the more endeared him to the
Hunt.

In later life Lord Carnarvon’s friends often noted
with amusement his fondness for those they describe
as “ quaint personalities.” It may be that this taste
owed its origin to those holiday hours spent waiting
for the fox in spinneys, and by larch woods dappled
with the early greenery of the incomparable West
Country spring-tide. Perhaps it was there also that
he received lessons in a less facile art than the obser-
vation of the quaint and curious. The perfect ease
of friendship, a friendship that excludes alike patron-
age and familiarity, was the keynote of the old
M.F.H.’s intercourse with man, woman, and child
on those mornings. It was much the same keynote
that governed Lord Carnarvon’s relations with persons
whose circumstances and mentality might seem to
set a wide distance between them. Those who
travelled with him on his annual journey — or
progress rather — from Paddington to Highclere at
Christmas can never forget the warmth of greet-
ings his presence called forth in the railway
employees of all grades, from inspectors to engine-
drivers. The festival gave them and gave him an
opportunity of expressing their feeling, their genuine
feeling for one another. It is no exaggeration to

8

Introduction

say that it was a moving scene, singularly appro-
priate to the celebration of the great family feast
of the year.

A private school and Eton are the successive steps
which automatically prepare a boy in Porchester’s
position for a future career. His private school
was not happily chosen. It subsisted on its former
reputation, and neither diet nor instruction was up
to the mark, but he was at least fortunate in emerging
alive from an epidemic of measles, which the boys
treated by pouring jugs of cold water on each other
when uncomfortably feverish.

To the end Eton retained in his eyes that glamour
which marks the true Etonian, and his tutor, Mr.
Marindin, shared in that affection. Yet it was
something of a misfortune that school did nothing
for the formation of methodical habits in a boy
endowed with an exceptionally fine memory and
unusual quickness. It would, for instance, have
been a blessing if an expensive education had taught
him to answer his letters. Thus, on one occasion,
literary circles rang with the wrathful denunciations
of a distinguished critic, who had vainly applied to
Lord Carnarvon, as heir to the eighteenth -century
Lord Chesterfield, for information regarding that
statesman’s relations with Montesquieu. It was
known that the author of “ L’Esprit des Lois ” had
visited either Chesterfield House or Bretby, where
it was presinned that some trace of the visit might
be found. On inquiry it transpired that Lord Car-
narvon had spent hours, if not days, searching the
library at Bretby, a library collected entirely by
Lord Chesterfield, for any vestiges of Montesquieu.
But the search having proved vain, it had not

e 9

Introduction

occurred to Carnarvon to send a postcard to that
effect — if only to point out how much trouble he
had taken on an unknown stranger’s behalf.

Before he left home for school, tutors and
governesses had pronounced Porchy to be idle ; and
probably, as in the case of most active young
creatures, it was no easy task to hold his sustained
attention. Yet, judged by the less exacting
standards of the present day, a child of ten
would now scarcely be considered backward who
was bilingual — French being the language used
with mother and teachers — was possessed of a fair
knowledge of German, the Latin Grammar, and the
elements of Greek, and sang charmingly to the old
tin kettle of a schoolroom piano. Labels are
fatal things. Once labelled idle it is the pupil
and not the instructor who earns the blame.
Perhaps also the perfection of the father’s scholar-
ship was a stumbling-block to the son. It is one
of life’s little ironies, on which schoolmasters should
ponder, that a man destined to reveal a whole
chapter of the Ancient World to the twentieth
century, frankly detested the classics as taught at
Eton.

The fourth Earl was too sensible to insist on his
son pursuing indefinitely studies doomed to failure.
Porchester left Eton early to study with a tutor at
home and abroad what would now be called the
“ modern side.” The amount of strenuous scientific
work achieved in the little laboratory by the side
of the lake at Highclere or during walking tours
through the Black Forest was probably small ; but
at any rate these two wanderjahren left him in
possession of a store of miscellaneous information

io

Introduction

seldom accumulated by the average schoolboy —
the very material to stimulate his natural versa-
tility. Some months were spent at Embleton
under the tuition of the future Bishop of London,
Dr. Creighton, to whose memory he remained much
attached. Work with crammers in England and at
Hanover with a view to entering the army formed
the next phase. The project of a military career,
however, proved evanescent ; and in 1885 Lord
Porchester was entered at Trinity College, Cam-
bridge. It was characteristic that being struck with
the beauty of the panelling in his college rooms,
he offered the authorities to have the many coats of
paint disfiguring the woodwork scraped off and the
rooms restored at his own expense — an offer un-
fortunately refused. Collecting was not then the
universal mania it has now become, but the under-
graduate was father to the man who was eventually
regarded as a court of appeal by the big dealers
in London. But long before Cambridge curiosity
shops had been his happy hunting grounds. As a
little lad, besides the stereotyped properties of the
average schoolboy, the inevitable stamp album, and
a snake — the latter housed for a whole term at
Eton in his desk — when he had a few shillings to
spare, blue and white cups, or specimens of cottage
china, would be added to his store of treasures. He
was still at Cambridge when he began collecting
French prints and drawings, notably the Rops draw-
ings, now highly valued by connoisseurs, then bought
for a few francs.

Nevertheless, at this period, sport rather than
antiquities was the main interest of the young man’s
life, and it is to be feared that he was more often

u

Introduction

seen at Newmarket than at lectures. His father
had recently built a villa on the Italian Riviera,
at Porto Fino, a lonely promontory, then absolutely
remote from tourists, as a deep chasm in the
high road leading to the little seaport formed an
effectual barrier to communications, save by sea,
with the outer world, As a means of locomotion
Porchester acquired a sailing boat, and therewith
acquired a passion for the water. The Mediterranean
is not the halcyon lake it is sometimes painted by
northern imagination. Indeed, Lerici, with its tragic
memories of Shelley, is a warning, almost within
view of Porto Fino, of the risks that attend on the
mariner who neglects to shorten sail when a sudden
gust sweeps down from the over-hanging mountains.
These squalls more than once nearly brought about
the end of the young “ milord,” the Italian boatmen
having a tiresome habit, at such crises, of falling
on their knees to invoke the Madonna, while Porches-
ter and his stolid English servant were left unassisted
to bring the boat to harbour.

To the born adventurer the zest of adventure
lies in its flavour of danger, and it was the
hazards run on these excursions that inoculated him
with the love of seafaring. When he left Cambridge
in 1887 he at once embarked in a sailing yacht for a
cruise round the world, and henceforward it may be
said that the lure of adventure never ceased to haunt
him. From Vigo he sailed to the Cape Verde Islands,
the West Indies, paused at Pernambuco, and then
let drive for 42 days on end through the great solitude
of the tropical seas till he brought up at Rio. It
was on this voyage that he acquired the passion for
reading, which was to be the mainstay of his existence,

12

Introduction

a gain which was cheaply purchased at the cost of
those long months spent under the Southern Cross.
He was wont to say that, fond as he was of sport
and motoring, he would gladly never stir out of his
chair if only when he finished one absorbing book,
another equally absorbing could drop into his hands.
Thus, the curtain being rung down on his academic
studies, the once idle undergraduate flung himself
with avidity into the pursuit of knowledge, and
especially of history, certain periods of which he
studied with the meticulous research of a professor
preparing a course of lectures.

Life on board the Aphrodite was not, however,
solely dedicated to placid readings of successive
series of improving tomes. There are bound to be
pleasant and unpleasant episodes on a long voyage
and the young man had his fill of both. In a high
gale, while the captain lay unconscious and delirious,
Porchester took command, and luck and a good first
mate being with him, brought the yacht safe to land.
Again, when one of the crew injured himself, and
the ship’s doctor was forced to operate, it was Por-
chester who, his finger on the man’s pulse, adminis-
tered the chloroform with the neatness and calm of
a professional anaesthetist. At Buenos Aires, then
in the floodtide of prosperity, with two Italian Opera
companies performing nightly to Argentine million-
aires, the young Englishman met with a cordial
welcome from all classes of the community, native
and foreign alike. In the style of the traditional
“ milord ” he feasted the President on the Aphrodite
— the first yacht to cast anchor in Argentine waters
— while he also made friends with men of business,
the Admiral commanding the British Squadron and

13

Introduction

the Italian Opera singers. He rather plumed himself
on the latter company having once called on him
to replace their missing accompanist at a rehearsal;
he admitted — for he loved telling a story against
himself — that the request was never repeated, as he
insisted on taking the artists according to his,
rather than according to their, notion of time.

Of all these acquaintances and friendships Admiral
Kennedy’s undoubtedly was the most valuable, since
it was thanks to his vigorous remonstrances that
Porchester finally abandoned his projected journey
through the Straits of Magellan, which, at the wrong
time of year and in a sailing boat, the admiral de-
clared to be suicidal. The complete tour of the world
planned by Porchester therefore failed, but the
journey was rich in experiences of all kinds to a young
man fresh from college.

From Buenos Aires, Porchester returned in some-
what leisurely manner homewards. Many of the
places he visited were terra incognita to the English-
man of that date, and even now are unfamiliar to
the average tourist. In the Great War he was one
of the few people able to give a first-hand description
of the scene of the battle at the Falkland Islands,
where he had predicted that the decisive fight for
the control of the South Atlantic must take place.

From these early travels he brought back, how-
ever, something more than acquaintance with the
waste places of the earth, beautiful scenery or strange
types of humanity. In these wanderings he also
saw something of the elemental conditions of life,
where a man’s hand must needs keep his head, an
experience too often denied to the rich man of our
latter-day civilization. A bibliophile, a collector of

M

Introduction

china and drawings and, indeed, of all things rare
and beautiful, with a fine taste intensified by obser-
vation and study, his happiest hours were probably
those when the unsought adventure called for rapid
decision and prompt action. But it should be under-
stood that the adventure must be unsought, for no
one was ever less cast in the mould of a Don Quixote.
His courage was of that peculiar calm variety which
means a pleasurable quickening of the pulse in
the hour of danger.

On one occasion in his youth he hired a boat to
take him somewhere off the coast to his ship lying
far out to sea. He was alone, steering the little
bark rowed by a couple of stalwart fishermen.
Suddenly, when far removed from land, and equally
distant from his goal, the two ruffians gave him the
choice between payment of a large sum or being
pitched into the water. He listened quietly, and
motioned to them to pass his dressing-bag. They
obeyed, already in imagination fingering the English
“Lord’s” ransom. The situation was, however, re-
versed when he extracted, not a well-stuffed pocket-
book, but a revolver, and pointing it at the pair
sternly bade them row on, or he would shoot. The
chuckle with which he recalled what was to him an
eminently delectable episode, still remains with his
hearer.

Truth compels his biographer to admit that he
did not always emerge so triumphantly from his
adventures. His next long journey was to South
Africa. From Durban he wrote to the present writer,
announcing his intention to go elephant hunting ;
and hunting he went, but the^ parts of hunter and
hunted were reversed. Accompanied by a single

15

Introduction

black, he lay in wait in the jungle for an elephant,
and in due course the beast made his appearance.
Porchester, generally an admirable shot, fired and
missed him, and after a time, seeing no more of his
quarry, slid down the tree where he was perched,
intending to amble quietly homewards. To do this,
he had to cross a piece of bare veldt which cut the
forest in two. He was well in the middle of this
shelterless tract, when he perceived that he was
being stalked by the elephant, saw he had no time
to re-load, and took to his heels with a speed he had
never imagined he could compass. His rifle, his
cartridge pouch, his glasses, his coat were all flung
away as he ran for dear life, with the vindictive
beast pounding on behind him. To him, as to the
Spaniard, haste, on foot at least, had always been
of the devil. Yet now, with life as the goal, it was
he who won the race. He reached the friendly jungle,
again climbed a tree and was saved. To be chased
by an elephant and escape, he was afterwards told,
was a more unusual feat than to bring one down to
his gun. Eventually, he became one of the half-
dozen best shots in England, but never again did
he go elephant hunting.

The journey to South Africa was followed by
another to Australia and Japan, whence Porchester
returned in the early summer of 1890, happily just in
time to be with his father, during Lord Carnarvon’s
last illness and death.

The new lord was only 23 when he entered on
his heritage, and save that his passion for sport kept
him at Highclere and Bretby during the shooting
season, and his love of the Opera for a few weeks in
London during the summer, he remained constant

16

Introduction

to his love of travel. He would suddenly dash off
to Paris or Constantinople, Sweden, Italy or Berlin,
for long or short periods, returning home equally
unexpectedly, having collected pictures and books
and any number of acquaintances and friends, some
of whose names, unfamiliar then, have since loomed
as large in the world’s history as they did in the
young traveller’s tales. Not that at this phase he
was unduly communicative. He rather affected the
allusive style, as “ when I saw the chief of the Mafia
in Naples ” — a style eminently adapted to whet
curiosities which he would then smilingly put by, to
the despair of a hearer who naturally wished to know
how he came across that mysterious potentate. His
sense of fun made him more explicit with regard to
his efforts to achieve acquaintance with another lurid
character. This was no other than the late Sultan
“ Abdul the Damned,” with whom during one of
his visits to Constantinople, Carnarvon was seized
with a desire to obtain an interview. Carnarvon’s
wardrobe was never his strong point. He had no
uniform, but he furbished up a yacht jacket with
extra brass buttons and hoped his attire would pass
muster with the Chamberlain’s department. His
name having been submitted through the Embassy
to the proper quarters, he was informed that an
equerry and a carriage would convey him to the
Yildiz Kiosk. On the appointed day the official
made his appearance wearing, however, an embar-
rassed air, for he had to explain that H.M., though
profoundly desolated, found himself unable to receive
his lordship. “ Perhaps another day ? ” — “ No, the
Sultan feared no other day was available, but
as a slight token of his esteem, he begged Lord

17

Introduction

Carnarvon’s acceptance of the accompanying high
order.” Carnarvon declined the order, which he
would certainly never have worn, and was left
equally vexed and puzzled. It took some time to
arrive at any explanation, but at last this was
achieved.

His father, the fourth Earl of Carnarvon, had
travelled extensively in Turkey, with the result that
he retained a profound horror of the misgovernment
of that unhappy country and an equally profound
sympathy for the persecuted Christian races. He
became the Chairman of the Society for the Pro-
tection of the Armenians and was regarded as one of
their chief sympathizers. This was known to Abdul,
though neither he nor his ministers had realized
that this Lord Carnarvon was dead, and that a
young man, bearing his name indeed, but otherwise
not having inherited his political views or influence,
was the English lord who had requested an audience
of the Sultan. Abdul lived in perpetual dread of
assassination, and in especial of assassination by
one of the race he had so cruelly persecuted. He
therefore jumped to the conclusion that Lord Car-
narvon had asked for an interview with the purpose
of killing him, and firmly declined to allow the
supposed desperado to enter his presence. Lovers
of history, like Carnarvon, are anxious to come face
to face with those who, for good or ill, are the
makers of history. Consequently he was genuinely
disappointed at the failure to see one of the
ablest though most sinister of these latter-day
figures. But the notion of his father, of all men,
being regarded as a potential murderer was too
ludicrous not to outweigh the vexation, and he

18

Introduction

frequently had a quiet laugh over this side of the
story.

In later life, when he was largely thrown into
their company, “ The Lord,” or “ Lordy ” as he
was called by the Egyptians, contrived to establish
more points of contact with Orientals of all classes
from pasha to fellah than is usually possible to the
Western man. But indeed he had an undeniable
charm, which, when he chose to exert it, attracted
the confidence of men and women all the world over.
An instance in point which also illustrates the mingled
shrewdness and whimsicality of his character con-
cerned a visit to California. On his way thither he
paused in New York, where he had promised a friend
he would try to obtain information respecting a
certain commercial undertaking. The fashion in
which he sought for information was, to say the
least, highly original. For it was of his hair-cutter
that he inquired as to the person in control of the
venture. The hair-cutter having proved, strange
to say, able to enlighten him on the subject, Lord
Carnarvon wrote a note to the financier in question
requesting an interview. In due course he was
received by a typical captain of industry, with
eyes like gimlets and a mouth like a steel trap,
who must have admired the candour of the stray
Englishman asking him straight out for advice.
The magnate listened courteously to his request for
information and then unequivocally urged him on
no account to touch the stocks. Carnarvon looked
hard at him, thanked him, and went straight off
to the telegraph office, where he cabled instructions
to buy. He then departed to California, where he
fished rapturously — he delighted in all varieties of

19

Introduction

sport — for tarpon. Six weeks later he returned to
New York to find that the shares had soared upwards,
and that his city friend was in ecstasies at the profit
made owing to Carnarvon’s decision. He then asked
for another interview with the financier, and was
again civilly received. This time, Carnarvon ex-
plained that he felt he could not leave America
without returning thanks for advice which had proved
so profitable that it had defrayed the expenses of a
very costly trip. The magnate stared and exclaimed,
“ But Lord Carnarvon, I advised you against buying.”
“ Oh, yes, I know you said that, but of course I saw
that you wished me to understand the reverse.”
There was a moment’s pause and then the great
man burst into a roar of laughter, held out his hand
and said, “ Pray consider this house your home
whenever you return to America.” “ And was your
captain of industry the most interesting person you
met on that journey ? ” his hearer inquired. “ Oh
dear no ! ” was the characteristic reply, “ the most
interesting man by far was the brakesman on the
railway cars to California. I spent hours talking
with him.”

In 1894 Lord Carnarvon chartered the steam
yacht Catarina, and in company with his friend
Prince Victor Duleep Singh again visited South
America. On his return in the summer of 1895 on
his 29th birthday he married Miss Almina Wombwell.
The marriage was celebrated at St. Margaret’s, West-
minster; the wedding breakfast took place at Lans-
downe House. All was sumptuous. The very pretty
bride might well have sat as a model to Greuze,
and the bridegroom’s singular air of distinction
was no less marked than her good looks. Moreover,

80

Introduction

he had been persuaded to order and to wear a frock
coat for the great occasion. But when they set off
for Highclere with its triumphal arches and its
cheering tenants, the bride herself wearing rose-
coloured gauze bespangled with emeralds and dia-
monds, Lord Carnarvon thankfully reverted to his
straw hat and his favourite blue serge jacket, which
the devoted old housekeeper, his mother’s maid, had
(much to her own scandal) darned that selfsame
morning ! The funny little detail was eminently
characteristic, for though his fastidious taste wel-
comed all that made for the refinements of existence,
with regard to himself he preserved intact his own
curious simplicity.

During the next eight or ten years the couple
lived the usual life, as it was lived in those cheerful
pre-war days, of young folk whose lot has been cast
in pleasant places. In 1898, much to their rejoicing,
a son, Henry, Lord Porchester, was born to them,
followed in 1901 by a daughter, Evelyn, destined
to become her father’s dearest friend and close
companion in the last eventful and fatal journey to
Egypt.

About 1890 Lord Carnarvon took up racing in
which he soon became deeply interested, for he was
incapable of giving half-hearted attention to any
business or pursuit. Ultimately [his main interest
lay in his stud farm where he was considered for-
tunate. He won some of the big races ; many of the
Ascot stakes, the Steward’s Cup [at Goodwood,
the Doncaster Cup and the City and Suburban.
He was a member of the Jockey Club.

Undoubtedly, especially as he grew older, the-
human element accounted for a large proportion of
21

Introduction

the entertainment he derived from the Turf. Apart
from his friendships with those of his own world,
he was genuinely interested in the many “ quaint
personalities ” known to him, one and all, by nick-
names he never forgot, and into whose domestic
lives, joys and anxieties he was initiated. When
the spare figure, unmistakably that of a gentleman,
appeared in the paddock or on the racecourse, wearing
a unique sort of low-crowned felt hat, of a shape never
seen on any head but his, his throat in all weathers
muffled in a yellow scarf, and shod, whatever the
smartness of the meeting, with brown shoes — “ that
fellow’s d — d brown shoes ” as a great personage,
noted for his observance of the ritual of dress,
once described them — he could count on a special
welcome as peculiar to himself as his dress and his
presence.

This is perhaps the place to say something of his
friendships, which were indeed an integral part of
himself. No man ever laid more to heart Polonius’s
axioms on that momentous side of life ; and un-
doubtedly it was with “ links of steel ” that he
grappled to himself his “ friends and their affections
tried.” As one of the most distinguished of these
writes, “ He was a very firm friend. It perhaps took
a long time before one was admitted to his friendship,
but once admittance was granted it was for always
and for ever. Nothing would change or weaken his
friendship. Those thus privileged knew well that
even if separated for years, the bonds of his friendship
existed as strong as ever, and when they met again,
they would be met as if they had never been parted
from him.” It is, indeed, true that nothing could
weaken his friendship. One of the few occasions on
22

introduction

which the present writer saw him break down was
when he was forced to confess that a very dear
friend, recently dead, had abused his confidence.
But even then he would not reveal what the offence
had been. He jealously guarded the man’s repu-
tation, nor, cut to the heart as he was, would
he allow the man’s dependants to suffer for his
fault. It was only years afterward that by a
mere chance his hearer was put into possession of
the facts, and was enabled to estimate the magni-
tude of the injury and the generosity of the
injured.

A man who is generous in thought is bound also
to be generous in deed. The number of lame dogs
he helped over stiles will never be known, for he
religiously obeyed the Evangelical precept not to
allow his right hand to know what his left hand did.
Only occasionally when he felt he could trust his
hearer would his sense of humour get the better of
his discretion.

Thus, one of his old tenants, whose farm was
rented at £727 11s. 4d. a year, for three years in
succession brought exactly £27 11s. 4d. to the annual
audit, and quite honestly considered that he was
entitled to receive a discharge in full. When this
happened for the third time, and as evidently the
land was going to rack and ruin, Lord Carnarvon
felt he must give the man notice. It was not an over-
rented holding, he anxiously explained, since no
sooner was his decision known, than he received an
offer of £1,100. “ But,” he added, “ I was so sorry

for the poor old fellow, who had spent his life
on the place, that I arranged to give him a sort
of pension of £250. I thought it would be a com-

*3

Introduction

fort.” But for the farmer’s singular views on the
balancing of accounts, which appealed to Carnarvon’s
sense of humour, the little tale would have remained
untold.

The same loyal fidelity which bound his affections
in perpetuity to his family, his sisters and brothers
and friends, made him an admirable master and a
true friend to his servants. He falsified, rather
amusingly, the proverb that a man cannot be a
hero to his valet. Short of a serious fault, once a
man entered his employment, he remained in it for
life, but on the condition that he gave good service.
That Lord Carnarvon expected, and that he got.
In the same way, being courteous and considerate
himself, he expected civility in return. He was
seldom disappointed, for, as he said in his last letter
to the present writer, “ it is wonderful what a little
politeness can do.” But meeting with rudeness, he
could give a rebuke which, for being rather obliquely
delivered, Avas none the less effective. In the war,
having occasion to go to one of the Control Depart-
ments, he was received by a damsel with “ bobbed ”
hair and bobbed manners who, in a voice of utter
scorn, demanded to know on Avhat business he could
have come. Since no human being could enter the
Department save for the one purpose of obtaining
the commodity in which the Control dealt, the ques-
tion, apart from the fashion in Avhich it was delivered,
was an impertinence. In the sweetest of voices,
Lord Carnarvon replied, “ Of course, I have come to
talk to you about the hippopotamus in the Zoo ”
— after which speech his business was put through
in double-quick time.

A fine shot, an owner of race-horses, a singularly

* 4

Introduction

well inspired art collector — his privately printed
catalogue of rare books is a model of its kind — Lord
Carnarvon was also a pioneer of motoring. He owned
cars in France before they were allowed in England.
In fact, his was the third motor registered in this
country, after the repeal of the act making it obliga-
tory for all machine-propelled carriages to be pre-
ceded on the high road by a man carrying a red
flag. Motoring was bound to appeal to one of his
disposition, and he threw himself with passion into
the new sport. He was a splendid driver, well
served by his gift — a gift which also served him
in shooting and golf — of judging distances accurately,
whilst possessing that unruffled calm in difficulties
which often, if not invariably, is the best insurance
against disaster.

Though Carnarvon enjoyed a reputation for reck-
lessness he was in reality far too collected and had
too much common sense to woo danger. When
the present writer reproached him for taking un-
necessary risks, he replied : “ Do you take me for
a fool ? In motoring the danger lies round corners,
and I never take a corner fast.” This was probably
true, but the “ best-laid schemes o’ mice and men
gang aft a-gley,” and it was on a perfectly straight
road that he met with the accident that materially
affected his whole life.

It was on a journey through Germany that disaster
overtook Carnarvon. He and his devoted chauffeur,
Edward Trotman, who accompanied him on all
his expeditions for eight - and - twenty years, had
been flying for many miles along an empty road,
ruled with Roman precision through an interminable
Teutonic forest, towards Schwalbach, where Lady

© 25

Introduction

Carnarvon was awaiting their arrival. Before them,
as behind, the highway still stretched out, when,
suddenly, as they crested a rise, they were confronted
by an unexpected dip in the ground, so steep as to be
invisible up to within 20 yards, and at the bottom,
right across the road, were drawn up two bullock
carts. Carnarvon did the only thing possible. Trust-
ing to win past, he put the car at the grass margin,
but a heap of stones caught the wheel, two tyres
burst, the car turned a complete somersault and fell
on the driver, while Trotman was flung clear some
feet away. Happily for them both, the latter’s thick
coat broke his fall, and with splendid presence of mind
he lost not a second in coming to his master’s rescue.
The car had fallen aslant across a ditch. Had it
fallen on the road, Carnarvon must have been crushed
to death, instead of being embedded head foremost
in mud. With the energy of despair, Trotman con-
trived to drag the light car aside and to extricate Carnar-
von, who was unconscious, his heart even appearing
to have stopped. The bullock drivers knowing them-
selves in fault had bolted, but Trotman saw some
workmen in an adjoining field, saw they had a can of
water, and without pausing to apologize seized the
can and dashed the water in Lord Carnarvon’s face.
The shock set the heart beating anew, and meanwhile
the workmen, who had followed hot-foot in pursuit
of their can, arrived on the scene. They had no
common language, but the awful spectacle and the
chauffeur’s signs were sufficient explanation and they
brought a doctor to the spot. He found a shattered
individual, evidently suffering from severe concussion,
his face swollen to shapelessness, his legs severely
burnt, his wrist broken, temporarily blind, the

2 6

Introduction

palate of his mouth and his jaw injured, caked in
mud from head to foot. In fact, he was only just
alive ; but he recovered consciousness to put the
one question which overpowered all else, “ Have I
killed anyone ? ” was reassured, and lapsed again into
unconsciousness. In this condition he was carried
to the nearest pot-house, where Lady Carnarvon,
who almost instantly rejoined him, summoned doctors
and surgeons to his bedside. It was characteristic
that almost the first words he murmured when he
had recovered speech were, “ I don’t think I have lost
my nerve ! ” He was right, he had not lost his nerve,
but he had lost his health. Nothing that skill or
care could effect then or later was spared, but
throughout the remainder of his life he suffered
from perpetually recurrent operations and dangerous
illnesses. He bore these with a noble courage,
and emerged mellowed rather than embittered
from these trials and the renunciations of work
and ambitions curtailed. Sometimes he lapsed
into long silences, seldom into complaints. It
was a fine triumph of will, assisted by the sense
of humour which was the warp and woof of his
being.

With regard to recreations, his versatility came
to his help. When agonizing headaches made shoot-
ing too painful, he took to golf, at which he was
“ scratch.” When golf proved beyond his strength,
he set himself to study the technique of photography,
and aided by his artistic faculty he shortly became
a master of the art. Indeed, in the words of an
expert, “Carnarvon’s work was known in all parts
of the globe where pictorial photography has an
honoured place, and it is not too much to say that

*7

Introduction

his productions were unique in their artistry and in
the knowledge that he displayed in their production.”
(Quarterly Journal of the Camera Club, Vol. I, 202,
May, 1923, p. 13, by F. J. Mortimer, F.R.P.S.). In
1916 he was elected President of the Camera Club.
He appreciated the distinction ; but the recognition
of his work in this field that brought him the greatest
pleasure was a summons he received during the war
to the Front to advise Royal Headquarters Flying
Corps on the subject of aerial photography. The
three days he spent at St. Andre went a little way,
though only a little way, to console him for not
being a combatant, and he rejoiced accordingly ;
though on his return to England he paid for the
effort with a sharp attack of illness. He had
always been attracted by mechanical inventions.
It was under Beacon Hill, on his property, that
Captain de Haviland constructed the first aero-
plane, which in its perfected form of D.H.9 became
the chief fighting aeroplane in the war.

Nevertheless, strive as he would, the renunciations
involved were not inconsiderable. He was deeply
interested in the elections of 1905 and 1910 and the
House of Lords controversy of 1911 ; and he would
probably have taken an active part in politics but
for his belief that the serious injury to his mouth and
jaw must militate against public speaking. He may
have exaggerated this drawback, for, when he de-
livered his lecture at the Central Hall, Westminster,
on January 11th, 1923, he was easily heard by a large
audience. But he disliked doing things badly,
and his fear of being indistinct, added to his many
illnesses, extinguished his hope of entering public
life. Many of his friends both now and then regretted

28

Introduction

this forced abstention from the public life of the
country. Sir William Garstin, whose verdict must
carry weight, writes, “ Lord Carnarvon took a deep
interest in all questions connected with English

politics, but it was the foreign policy of this country
that more particularly interested him. His exten-
sive travels, as well as his studies, gave him a grasp
of the subjects connected with ‘ World policy ’ that
is unusual in Englishmen who live much of their lives
at home. Perhaps the politics of the Near East
attracted him more than those of any other country
His frequent visits to Turkey and the Balkan States,
and his recognition of the ties that closely bind
England with these nations, gave him a direct

personal interest in the questions. He certainly

Qould and did talk well and intelligently upon every-
thing connected with England’s relations with Turkey
and the East.”

The net result of the accident was the necessity
to winter out of England, since, with his difficulty
of breathing, a bad attack of bronchitis would
probably have proved fatal. In 1903 he con-

sequently went to Egypt and was at once
captivated by the fascination of “ digging.” An
unfinished fragment on the subject, on which he
was engaged at his death, gives an account of
these early days:

“ It had always been my wish and intention even
as far back as 1889 to start excavating, but for one
reason or another I had never been able to begin.
However, in 1906 with the aid of Sir William Garstin,
who was then adviser to the Public Works, I started
to excavate in Thebes.

“ I may say that at this period I knew nothing

*9

Introduction

whatever about excavating, so I suppose with the
idea of keeping me out of mischief, as well as keeping
me employed, I was allotted a site at the top of
Sheikh Abdel Gurna. I had scarcely been operating
for 24 hours when we suddenly struck what seemed
to be an untouched burial pit. This gave rise to
much excitement in the Antiquities Department,
which soon simmered down when the pit w r as found
to be unfinished. There, for six weeks, enveloped
in clouds of dust, I stuck to it day in and day out.
Beyond finding a large mummified cat in its case,
which now graces the Cairo Museum, nothing what-
soever rewarded my strenuous and very dusty en-
deavours. This utter failure, however, instead of
disheartening me had the effect of making me keener
than ever.”

The more he toiled, however, the more it
became clear to him that he needed expert aid ;
accordingly he consulted Sir Gaston Maspero, who
advised him to have recourse to Mr. Howard
Carter.

Sir Gaston Maspero’s advice proved even more
fruitful of good than Lord Carnarvon anticipated.
In Mr. Howard Carter Carnarvon obtained the
collaboration not only of a learned expert, an archaeo-
logist gifted with imagination, and as Lord Carnarvon
said “ a very fine artist,” but that of a true friend.
For the next sixteen years the two men worked
together with varying fortune, yet ever united not
more by their common aim than by their mutual
regard and affection.

An account of Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Carter’s
work is to be found in the sumptuous volume entitled
“ Five Years’ Explorations at Thebes ” which they

Introduction

published in 1912. Lord Carnarvon’s description of
the first excavations effected with Mr. Howard
Carter should, however, find place here. “ After
perhaps 10 days’ work at Deir el Bahari in 1907,”
he writes, “ we came upon what proved to be an
untouched tomb. I shall never forget the first sight
of it. There was something extraordinarily modern
about it. Several coffins were in the tomb, but the
first that arrested our attention was a white bril-
liantly painted coffin with a pall loosely thrown over
it, and a bouquet of flowers lying just at its foot.
There these coffins had remained untouched and
forgotten for 2,500 years. The reason for the sepul-
chre being inviolate was soon apparent. There was
no funerary furniture, and evidently the owners of
the coffins were poor people, and they or their rela-
tions had put all the funeral money they were able
to spend into the ornamental coffins that contained
their bodies.

“ One of these coffins I presented to the Newbury
Museum. The results of this season were very poor,
still one day we thought that we had at last found
something which had every appearance of an un-
touched tomb some 400 yards from the Temple of
Deir el Bahari. In the morning, I rode out, and no
sooner did I see Carter’s face than I knew some-
thing unpleasant and unforeseen had occurred.
Alas ! What looked promising the day before
turned out to be merely a walled-up sort of stable
where the ancient Egyptian foreman had tethered
his donkey and kept his accounts. But this is
a common occurrence, for in excavation it is
generally the unexpected that happens and the
unexpected is nearly always unpleasant.” So

3i

Introduction

wrote the future revealer of Tut-anklvAmen’s
tomb.

In 1907 Lord Carnarvon began to form his now
celebrated Egyptian collection. “ My chief aim,”
he writes, “ was then, and is now, not merely to buy
because a thing is rare, but rather to consider the
beauty of an object than its pure historic value.
Of course when the two, beauty and historic interest,
are blended in a single object the interest and delight
of possession are more than doubled.” The testimony
of that eminent authority, Sir Ernest Budge, strikingly
confirms Lord Carnarvon’s own account of his col-
lection. “He only cared,” says Sir Ernest, “for
the best, and nothing but the best would satisfy
him, and having obtained the best he persisted in
believing that there must be somewhere something
better than the best. His quest for the beautiful
in Egyptian design, form and colour became the cult
of his life in recent years. His taste was faultless
and his instinct for the true and genuine was un-
rivalled. When compared with a beautiful ‘ antica ’
money had no value for him, and he was wont to
say with Sir Henry Rawlinson, ‘it is easier to get
money than anticas.’”*

Of all the renunciations forced upon him by bad
health the one which cost him most was his inability
to take a personal part in the Great War. Although
he was past military age, his quick intelligence and
his intimate knowledge of the French language and
French mentality would have made him a valuable
liaison officer. Indeed, at one moment he cherished
the hope that he might accompany his friend General

* Tufankh'Amen, Amenism, Atemism and Egyptian Monotheism , Fref.,

Introduction

Sir John Maxwell to the Front, but as at the moment
the jolting of a taxi caused him almost unbearable
pain, he had to content himself with such work as
he could find to do at home. Nevertheless, when his
brother Aubrey Herbert, to whom he was specially
devoted, was wounded and lost during the retreat
from Mons, he was preparing to go, pain or no pain,
to hunt for him in his motor, when the news of
Aubrey’s escape arrived. At a later stage of the war
to attempt such an adventure would have been
unthinkable, but at that crisis, immediately after
the victory of the Marne, before the war had hardened
into a war of trenches, it is just possible that Carnar-
von’s mingled resource and calmness might have
been successful.

It was characteristic that quite a week before
war was declared, being convinced that it was immi-
nent, and believing that food shortage would be the
immediate danger, he quietly made preparations for
feeding the population on his property. The beauty
of his scheme lay in the fact that it did not entail
a run on the shops. The potatoes remained in the
field, the corn in the ricks, though ready when the
pinch came to be doled out, carefully rationed, to
the little community of 253 souls for whom he held
himself responsible. As we know, he had misdated
that particular peril, and quick to realize his
mistakes, he promptly turned his energies in other
directions.

From the very outbreak of the war, Lord and
Lady Carnarvon converted Highclere into an officers’
hospital, which was subsequently transferred to
88 Bryanston Square, and whether in town or
country noted for the tender and efficient care of

33

Introduction

its inmates. After Lady Carnarvon moved her hos-
pital to London, Carnarvon occupied himself, amongst
other things, in promoting the conversion of pastime
at Highclere into arable land. He was well seconded
by his old and attached employees, and was more
successful than those who knew the thin chalk soil
dared to hope. While alone, on one of his periodical
visits to Highclere, he was seized with appendicitis.
Lady Carnarvon accompanied by surgeons and doc-
tors rushed down and carried him off to the hospital
in London, where he was promptly operated upon.
And thus in all probability it was owing to the hospital
this husband and wife had founded that his life was
eventually saved, for nowhere else, at that particular
time, could he have obtained the same unremitting
care.

It was, however, a close call. The great surgeon,
Sir Berkeley Moynihan, who was summoned from
Leeds to his bedside, admitted that he himself had
only given him another three-quarters of an hour
to live. Lord Carnarvon afterwards declared that,
though he realized his danger, he was convinced
that his sufferings were too acute to allow him to
die. True to his inextinguishable sense of humour,
even at this crisis, he contrived to make a joke and
was surprised that it did not seem to amuse his
medical attendants. “ It was not much of a joke,
but still there was a point to it and only George
[his very devoted servant] smiled,” he complained.
In the circumstances, the doctors might be excused,
for it was something of a miracle when their patient
pulled through. He himself ascribed his recovery
to his wife’s resource and exertions and to the skill
and devotion with which she surrounded him —

34

Introduction

devotion readily given, for his nurses adored a
patient who, even in extremis, remained considerate
and courteous.

Two years later, he had to undergo another
vital operation, and again he recovered, and seemed
to have got a firmer grip of life. By that time,
moreover, the war had come to an end, and his only
son, who had fought through the Mesopotamian
campaign, was once more safe at home at his side.
This was an untold relief to Carnarvon. He was
too true an Englishman to grudge his boy to the
country’s service, but in many little ways he showed
how greatly he felt the strain. Habitually the most
reserved of men, when one of the pencil letters
reached him, for which so many hungry hearts
yearned in those dark days, he would hurry round
to read the precious epistle to a sympathetic audience.
And from the moment of the young soldier’s em-
barkation “ my boy’s ” little fox terrier never left
his side.

Carnarvon’s love for his children played a great
part in his life. He thoroughly enjoyed their com-
panionship, and perhaps even more the evident
pleasure they took in his society. His love for them
enlarged his outlook on life [as a whole, or rather
perhaps swept away the remnant of the constitutional
reserve which sometimes set a veil between his true
self and the outer world. He who, as a friend said,
“ laughed through life,” and, in especial, laughed at
himself and his tribulations, confessed himself sur-
prised at the extent that fear for their welfare could
penetrate his defensive armour. When anxious
about his daughter, his gallant little gibes deserted
him. “ I cannot tell you how this has upset me,”

35

Introduction

he wrote, “ I really can’t sleep or eat. I had no
idea that anything could worry me so.” And
it is doubtful whether the great discovery itself
would not have lost half its savour if this
daughter, his inseparable companion, had not been
there to share in the rapture of that amazing
revelation.

Even during the war Lord Carnarvon had made
efforts to get to Egypt. In fact, but for a bad attack
of pleurisy which at the last moment detained him
in England, he would have arrived at Cairo the very
day the Turks made their unsuccessful onslaught on
the Canal. Naturally, as soon as the Armistice was
signed, he took steps to rejoin Mr. Carter, who in
the intervals of his war work at G.H.Q. in Cairo
had been able to start preliminary investigations in
The Valley of the Kings. Journeys were, however,
no easy matter in 1919. With great difficulty
berths were procured on a boat, which was
protected during the crossing by paravanes to
avoid the disaster that had recently overtaken a
French ship, sunk by a floating mine. But mines
were a less danger than the sanitary condition of
the boat. She had served as a troopship during
the war, had not yet been disinfected, and was
packed with Arabs to be landed at Bizerta.
Happily the journey was short, but in that short
space there was much sickness and a few deaths.
The journey so inauspiciously begun did not im-
prove as time went on. It was a period of unrest
in Egypt, and it was fortunate that Carnarvon’s
desire to explore the Fayum with a view to
excavations brought the party back earlier than
usual from Luxor to Cairo. Everything had been

36

Introduction

arranged for the Fayum expedition, and the hour for
the departure fixed, when, the evening before' the
start, Carnarvon received such disquieting reports
of the situation in the provinces that he decided to
defer the journey. It was a lucky decision, since
the next day witnessed the beginning of trouble in
the Fayum, and in a day or two, as he himself
wrote, “ the country was in a state of anarchy.
During a lull in the general disorder,” he con-
tinues, “ I managed to pack off my family to
Port Said, and I well remember how relieved I
was to get a telegram to say they had embarked
safely.”

As for himself he remained on for a time in Cairo,
partly in the hope of being able to achieve some more
digging, but also because he was genuinely interested
in the situation. As Sir William Garstin remarks,
“ It was Carnarvon’s interest in Egyptology that first
drew him to Egypt. He very soon, however, became
much interested in Egyptian politics. He had a
great liking for the Egyptians and for those who
were trying to restore her as a nation, and
he showed a sympathetic interest in them to
which they readily responded. Few Englishmen
have been more liked in Egypt, and the sorrow
that was evinced at his death was universal and
sincere.” Sir William Garstin’s estimate of Lord
Carnarvon’s position in Egypt is fully confirmed
by Sir John Maxwell, also a great authority on
Egyptian politics. “ He was one of the few
Englishmen,” he says, “ who realized and appre-
ciated what Egypt did for us during the war, and
how difficult it would have been for us had she
taken an unfriendly attitude ; also that a loyal, con-

37

Introduction

tented friend on our Eastern communications was
infinitely preferable to a sullen, discontented enemy.
He was convinced that the former could be accom-
plished. He was a good and patient listener and
gained the confidence of many of the best class in
Egypt. Both in London and at Highclere he enter-
tained the Egyptian delegations. All were appreci-
ative of his hospitality and consideration and all felt
that, in his death, they had lost a real friend of their
country.”

As the days passed, it became evident, however,
that any work for that season was out of the ques-
tion. He was needed in England and he decided to
leave. This was not easy and he was about to
charter a sailing boat, when he obtained a passage
home. Lord Carnarvon was fated to pay several
more visits to Egypt. After his operation in 1919
while scarcely convalescent, he insisted on leaving
for Luxor at the usual season and there recovered
his health and strength.

A description of Tut-ankh-Amen’s tomb and its
discovery does not fall within the province of this
sketch, which concerns the man rather than the
archaeologist. Carnar von was never addicted to self-
analysis, and though he could give detailed de-
scriptions of the beautiful objects discovered in the
tomb, words failed him to express the effect on
himself personally of the actual discovery. He
could only assure his hearers that it was “ a
very exciting moment ” ! Nor, unlike most events,
as the weeks passed, did the excitement wane for
the public or for Lord Carnarvon ; and naturally,
perhaps, to no one more than to him did these
successive revelations bring delight. “ He was as

38

Introduction

happy as he was modest,” said a distinguished
scholar.

In this sad world it would seem that triumphs
have to be paid for in weariness of soul and body.
It was a glorious episode, but when the tomb was
closed for the season, Lord Carnarvon was very
tired. A mosquito bit him, the wound got poisoned,
and though wife and daughter, doctors and nurses,
fought valiantly for his life it was a losing fight.
Through those long three weeks of pain and misery
he remained his old gallant self. Readers of the
bulletins may remember that the gloomiest generally
concluded with an assurance that the patient’s spirits
were good. But he himself had no illusions. “ I
have heard the call,” he said to a friend, “ I am
preparing.” On the 6th of April, 1923, he passed
away.

In his will he expressed the wish to be buried on
Beacon Hill. It was, therefore, on the summit of
the great down overlooking the home that he had so
passionately loved, that he was laid to rest. Only
his nearest and dearest, and a few workmen and
servants, many of whom had grown grey in his service,
stood around the grave, but these too he had ac-
counted part of his family, and their lament, “ Of
course, he was my master, but he was my friend
too,” was the epitaph he would himself have chosen.
Organ, music, choristers, there were none at this
burying. The beautiful old office, commending “ the
body of our dear brother to the ground in sure and
certain hope,” had something of the stark grandeur
of a funeral at sea. But the whole air was alive
with the springtide song of the larks. They sang
deliriously, in a passion of ecstasy which can never

39

Introduction

be forgotten by those who heard that song. And
so we left him, feeling that the ending was in harmony
with the life.

“ Here, here’s his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,

Stars come and go ! Let joy break the storm —

Peace let the dew send !

Lofty design must close in like effects :

Loftily lying,

Leave him — still loftier than the World suspects.

Living and dying.”

WINIFRED BURGHCLERE.

The Lake,

Highclere,

September 17 , 1923 .

40

THE TOMB OF TUT ANKH AMEN

CHAPTER I

The King and the Queen

A FEW preliminary words about Tutankh-
Amen, the king whose name the whole
- world knows, and who in that sense prob-
ably needs an introduction less than anyone in
history. He was the son-in-law, as everyone knows,
of that most written-about, and probably most over-
rated, of all the Egyptian Pharaohs, the heretic king
Akhen-Aten. Of his parentage we know nothing.
He may have been of the blood royal and had some
indirect claim to the throne on his own account. He
may on the other hand have been a mere commoner.
The point is immaterial, for, by his marriage to a
king’s daughter, he at once, by Egyptian law of suc-
cession, became a potential heir to the throne. A
hazardous and uncomfortable position it must have
been to fill at this particular stage of his country’s
history. Abroad, the Empire founded in the fifteenth
century b.c. by Thothmes III, and held, with diffi-
culty it is true, but still held, by succeeding
monarchs, had crumpled up like a pricked balloon.
At home dissatisfaction was rife. The priests of the
ancient faith, who had seen their gods flouted and
their very livelihood compromised, were straining
at the leash, only waiting the most convenient
£ 41

The Tomb of Tut-ankh'Amen

moment to slip it altogether: the soldier class, con-
demned to a mortified inaction, were seething with
discontent, and apt for any form of excitement :
the foreign harim element, women who had been
introduced into the Court and into the families of
soldiers in such large numbers since the wars of
conquest, were now, at a time of weakness, a sure
and certain focus of intrigue: the manufacturers and
merchants, as foreign trade declined and home credit
was diverted to a local and extremely circumscribed
area, were rapidly becoming sullen and discontented :
the common populace, intolerant of change, grieving,
many of them, at the loss of their old familiar gods,
and ready enough to attribute any loss, deprivation,
or misfortune, to the jealous intervention of these
offended deities, were changing slowly from bewilder-
ment to active resentment at the new heaven and
new earth that had been decreed for them. And
through it all Akh-en-Aten, Gallio of Gallios, dreamt
his life away at Tell el Amarna.

The question of a successor was a vital one for
the whole country, and we may be sure that in-
ti'igue was rampant. Of male heirs there was none,
and interest centres on a group of little girls, the
eldest of whom could not have been more than
fifteen at the time of her father’s death. Young
as she was, this eldest princess, Mert-Aten by name,
had already been married some little while, for in
the last year or two of Akh en- Aten’s reign we find
her husband associated with him as co-regent, a
vain attempt to avert the crisis which even the
arch-dreamer Akh en-Aten must have felt to be in-
evitable. Her taste of queenship was but a short
one, for Smenkh-ka-Re, her husband, died within a

4 *

The King and the Queen

short while of Akh-en- Aten. He may even, as evi-
dence in this tomb seems to show, have predeceased
him, and it is quite possible that he met his death
at the hands of a rival faction. In any case he
disappears, and his wife with him, and the throne
Was open to the next claimant.

The second daughter, Makt-Aten, died unmarried
in Akh-en- Aten’s lifetime. The third, Ankh-es-en-pa*
Aten, was married to Tut- ankh- Aten as he then v as,
the Tut-ankh-Amen with whom we are now so
familiar. Just when this marriage took place is not
certain. It may have been in Akh-en- Aten’s life-
time, or it may have been contracted hastily im-
mediately after his death, to legalize his claim to the
throne. In any event they were but children.
Ankh-es-en-pa- Aten was born in the eighth year of
her father’s reign, and therefore cannot have been
more than ten ; and we have reason to believe, from
internal evidence in the tomb, that Tut-ankh-Amen
himself was little more than a boy. Clearly in the
first years of this reign of children there must have
been a power behind the throne, and we can be
tolerably certain who this power was. In all coun-
tries, but more particularly in those of the Orient,
it is a wise rule, in cases of doubtful or weak suc-
cession, to pay particular attention to the move-
ments of the most powerful Court official. In the
Tell el Amarna Court this was a certain Ay, Chief
Priest, Court Chamberlain, and practically Court
everything else. He himself was a close personal
friend of Akh-en- Aten’s, and his wife Tyi was nurse
to the royal wife Nefertiti, so we may be quite sure
there was nothing that went on in the palace that
they did not know. Now, looking ahead a little we

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

find that it was this same Ay who secured the throne
himself after Tut-ankh-Amen’s death. We also know,
from the occurrence of his cartouche in the sepul-
chral chamber of the newly found tomb, that he
made himself responsible for the burial ceremonies
of Tut-ankh-Amen, even if he himself did not actually
construct the tomb. It is quite unprecedented in
The Valley to find the name of a succeeding king
upon the walls of his predecessor’s sepulchral monu-
ment. The fact that it was so in this case seems
to imply a special relationship between the two, and
we shall probably be safe in assuming that it was
Ay who was largely responsible for establishing the
boy king upon the throne. Quite possibly he had
designs upon it himself already, but, not feeling
secure enough for the moment, preferred to bide his
time and utilize the opportunities he would un-
doubtedly have, as minister to a young and inex-
perienced sovereign, to consolidate his position. It
is interesting to speculate, and when we remember
that Ay in his turn was supplanted by another of
the leading officials of Akh-en- Aten’s reign, the
General Hor-em-heb, and that neither of them had
any real claim to the throne, we can be reasonably
sure that in this little by-way of history, from
1375 to 1350 b.c., there was a well set stage for
dramatic happenings.

However, as self-respecting historians, let us put
aside the tempting “ might have beens ” and
“ probably s ” and come back to the cold hard facts
of history. What do we really know about this
Tut-ankh-Amen with whom we have become so
surprisingly familiar ? Remarkably little, when you
come right down to it. In the present state of our

44

The King and the Queen

knowledge we might say with truth that the one out-
standing feature of his life was the fact that he
died and was buried. Of the man himself — if indeed
he ever arrived at the dignity of manhood — and of
his personal character we know nothing. Of the
events of his short reign we can glean a little, a
very little, from the monuments. We know, for
instance, that at some time during his reign he
abandoned the heretic capital of his father-in-law,
and removed the Court back to Thebes. That he
began as an Aten worshipper, and reverted to the old
religion, is evident from his name Tut-ankh-Aten,
changed to Tut -ankh Amen, and from the fact that
he made some slight additions and restorations to
the temples of the old gods at Thebes. There is also
a stela in the Cairo Museum, which originally stood in
one of the Karnak temples, in which he refers to
these temple restorations in somewhat grandiloquent
language. “ I found,” he says, “ the temples fallen
into ruin, with their holy places overthrown, and
their courts overgrown with weeds. I reconstructed
their sanctuaries, I re-endowed the temples, and
made them gifts of all precious things. I cast statues
of the gods in gold and electrum, decorated with
lapis lazuli and all fine stones .” 1 We do not know
at what particular period in his reign this change
of religion took place, nor whether it was due to
personal feeling or was dictated to him for political
reasons. We know from the tomb of one of his
officials that certain tribes in Syria and in the Sudan
were subject to him and brought him tribute, and on

i This stela, parts of which are roughly translated above, was sub-
equently usurped by Hor*em-heb, as were almost all Tut-ankh*Amen’s
monuments.

45

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

many of the objects in his own tomb we see him
trampling with great gusto on prisoners of war, and
shooting them by hundreds from his chariot, but we
must by no means take for granted that he ever
in actual fact took the field himself. Egyptian mon-
archs were singularly tolerant of such polite fictions.

That pretty well exhausts the facts of his life as
we know them from the monuments. From his tomb,
so far, there is singularly little to add. We are
getting to know to the last detail what he had, but
of what he was and what he did we are still sadly
to seek. There is nothing yet to give us the exact
length of his reign. Six years we knew before as a
minimum : much more than that it cannot have
been. We can only hope that the inner chambers
will be more communicative. His body, if, as we
hope and expect, it still lies beneath the shrines
within the sepulchre, will at least tell us his age
at death, and may possibly give us some clue to
the circumstances.

Just a word as to his wife, Ankh-es-en pa-Aten as
she was known originally, and Ankh-es en Amcn
after the reversion to Thebes. As the one through
whom the king inherited, she was a person of con-
siderable importance, and he makes due acknow-
ledgment of the fact by the frequency with which
her name and person appear upon the tomb furniture.
A graceful figure she was, too, unless her portraits
do her more than justice, and her friendly relations
with her husband are insisted on in true Tell el
Amama style. There are two particularly charming
representations of her. In one, on the back of the
throne (Plate II), she anoints her husband with per-
fume : in the other, she accompanies him on a shooting

The King and the Queen

expedition, and is represented crouching at his feet,
handing him an arrow with one hand, and with the
other pointing out to him a particularly fat duck
which she fears may escape his notice. Charming
pictures these, and pathetic, too, when we remember
that at seventeen or eighteen years of age the wife
was left a widow. Well, perhaps. On the other
hand, if we know our Orient, perhaps not, for to
this story there is a sequel, provided for us by a
number of tablets, found some years ago in the
ruins of Boghozkeui, and only recently deciphered.
An interesting little tale of intrigue it outlines, and
in a few words we get a clearer picture of Queen
Ankh-es-en-Amen than Tut-ankh-Amen was able to
achieve for himself in his entire equipment of funeral
furniture.

She was, it seems, a lady of some force of
character. The idea of retiring into the background
in favour of a new queen did not appeal to her,
and immediately upon the death of her husband she
began to scheme. She had, we may presume, at
least two months’ grace, the time that must elapse
between Tut-ankh-Amen’s death and burial, for until
the last king was buried it was hardly likely that
the new one would take over the reins. Now, in
the past two or three reigns there had been con-
stant intermarriages between the royal houses of
Egypt and Asia. One of Ankh-cs-en-Amen’s sisters
had been sent in marriage to a foreign court, and
many Egyptologists think that her own mother was
an Asiatic princess. It was not surprising, then,
that in this crisis she should look abroad for help,
and we find her writing a letter to the King of
the Hittites in the following terms : “ My husband

47

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

is dead and I am told that you have grown-up
sons. Send me one of them, and I will make him
my husband, and he shall be king over Egypt.”

It was a shrewd move on her part, for there
was no real heir to the throne in Egypt, and the
swift dispatch of a Hittite prince, with a reason-
able force to back him up, would probably have
brought off a very successful coup. Promptitude,
however, was the one essential, and here the queen
was reckoning without the Hittite king. Hurry
in any matter was v r ell outside his calculations.
It would never do to be rushed into a scheme of
this sort without due deliberation, and how did
he know that the letter was not a trap ? So he
summoned his counsellors and the matter was talked
over at length. Eventually it was decided to send
a messenger to Egypt to investigate the truth of
the story. “ Where,” he writes in his reply — and
you can see him patting himself on the back for his
shrewdness — “is the son of the late king, and w'hat
has become of him ? ”

Now, it took some fourteen days for a messenger
to go from one country to the other, so the poor
queen’s feelings can be imagined, when, after a month's
waiting, she received, in answer to her request, not
a prince and a husband, but a dilatory futile letter.
In despair she writes again : “ Why should I deceive
you ? I have no son, and my husband is dead. Send
me a son of yours and I will make him king.” The
Hittite king now decides to accede to her request and
to send a son, but it is evidently too late. The time
had gone by. The document breaks off here, and
it is left to our imagination to fill in the rest of the
story. > •

The King and the Queen

Did the Hittite prince ever start for Egypt, and
how far did he get ? Did Ay, the new king, get
wind of Ankh-es-emAmen’s schemings and take
effectual steps to bring them to naught ? We shall
never know. In any case the queen disappears from
the scene and we hear of her no more. It is a fasci-
nating little tale. Had the plot succeeded there
would never have been a Rameses the Great.

49

CHAPTER II

The Valley and the Tomb

T HE Valley of the Tombs of the Kings — the
very name is full of romance, and of all
Egypt’s wonders there is none, I suppose,
that makes a more instant appeal to the imagination.
Here, in this lonely valley -head, remote from every
sound of life, with the “ Horn,” the highest peak
in the Theban hills, standing sentinel like a natural
pyramid above them, lay thirty or more kings,
among them the greatest Egypt ever knew. Thirty
were buried here. Now, probably, but two remain
— Amen-hetep II — whose mummy may be seen by
the curious lying in his sarcophagus — and Tut ankh-
Amen, who still remains intact beneath his golden
shrine. There, when the claims of science have been
satisfied, we hope to leave him lying.

I do not propose to attempt a word picture of
The Valley itself — that has been done too often in
the past few months. I would like, however, to
devote a certain amount of time to its history, for
that is essential to a proper understanding of our
present tomb.

Tucked away in a corner at the extreme end of
The Valley, half concealed by a projecting bastion
of rock, lies the entrance to a very unostentatious
tomb. It is easily overlooked and rarely visited,
but it has a very special interest as being the first
ever constructed in The Valley. More than that : it

* 5 °

The Valley and the Tomb

is notable as an experiment in a new theory of
tomb design. To the Egyptian it was a matter of
vital importance that his body should rest inviolate
in the place constructed for it, and this the earlier
kings had thought to ensure by erecting over it a very
mountain of stone. It was also essential to a
mummy’s well-being that it should be fully equipped
against every need, and, in the case of a luxurious
and display-loving Oriental monarch, this would
naturally involve a lavish use of gold and other
treasure. The result was obvious enough. The very
magnificence of the monument was its undoing, and
within a few generations at most the mummy would
be disturbed and its treasure stolen. Various expedi-
ents were tried ; the entrance passage — naturally
the weak spot in a pyramid — was plugged with
granite monoliths weighing many tons ; false passages
were constructed ; secret doors were contrived ; every-
thing that ingenuity could suggest or wealth could
purchase was employed. Vain labour all of it, for by
patience and perseverance the tomb robber in every
case surmounted the difficulties that were set to
bailie him. Moreover, the success of these expedients,
and therefore the safety of the monument itself, was
largely dependent on the good will of the mason
who carried out the work, and the architect who de-
signed it. Careless workmanship would leave a
danger point in the best planned defences, and, in
private tombs at any rate, we know that an ingress
for plunderers was sometimes contrived by the officials
who planned the work.

Efforts to secure the guarding of the royal monu-
ment were equally unavailing. A king might leave
enormous endowments — as a matter of fact each

5 1

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

king did — for the upkeep of large companies of
pyramid officials and guardians, but after a time
these very officials were ready enough to connive at
the plundering of the monument they were paid to
guard, while the endowments were sure, at the end
of the dynasty at latest, to be diverted by some
subsequent king to other purposes. At the begin-
ning of the Eighteenth Dynasty there was hardly
a king’s tomb in the whole of Egypt that had not
been rifled — a somewhat grisly thought to the
monarch who was choosing the site for his own last
resting place. Thothmes I evidently found it so,
and devoted a good deal of thought to the problem,
and as a result we get the lonely little tomb at the
head of The Valley. Secrecy was to be the solution
to the problem.

A preliminary step in this direction had been taken
by his predecessor, Amen hetep I, who made his tomb
some distance away from his funerary temple, on the
summit of the Drah Abu’l Negga foot-hills, hidden
beneath a stone, but this was carrying it a good
deal further. It was a drastic break with tradition,
and we may be sure that he hesitated long before he
made the decision. In the first place his pride would
suffer, for love of ostentation was ingrained in every
Egyptian monarch and in his tomb more than any-
where else he was accustomed to display it. Then,
too, the new arrangement would seem likely to
cause a certain amount of inconvenience to his
mummy. The early funerary monuments had
always, in immediate proximity to the actual place of
burial, a temple in which the due ceremonies were
performed at the various yearly festivals, and daily
offerings were made. Now’ there was to be no monu-

5 *

The Valley and the Tomb

ment over the tomb itself, and the funerary temple
in which the offerings were made was to be situated a
mile or so away, on the other side of the hill. It
was certainly not a convenient arrangement, but it was
necessary if the secrecy of the tomb was to be kept,
and secrecy King Thothmes had decided on, as the
one chance of escaping the fate of his predecessors.

The construction of this hidden tomb was en-
trusted by Thothmes to Ineni, his chief architect,
and in the biography which was inscribed on the
wall of his funerary chapel Ineni has put on record
the secrecy with which the work was carried out.
“ I superintended the excavation of the cliff tomb of
His Majesty,” he tells us, “ alone, no one seeing, no
one hearing.” Unfortunately he omits to tell us
anything about the workmen he employed. It is
sufficiently obvious that a hundred or more lab-
ourers with a knowledge of the king’s dearest secret
would never be allowed at large, and we can be
quite sure that Ineni found some effectual means of
stopping their mouths. Conceivably the work was
carried out by prisoners of war, who were slaughtered
at its completion.

How long the secret of this particular tomb held
we do not know. Probably not long, for what
secret was ever kept in Egypt ? At the time of its
discovery in 1899 little remained in it but the massive
stone sarcophagus, and the king himself was moved,
as we know, first of all to the tomb of his daughter
Hat-shep-sut, and subsequently, with the other royal
mummies, to Deir el Bahari. In any case, whether
the hiding of the tomb was temporarily successful
or not, a new fashion had been set, and the remain-
ing kings of this Dynasty, together with those of

S3

The Tomb of Tut-ankh'Amen

the Nineteenth and Twentieth, were all buried in
The Valley.

The idea of secrecy did not long prevail. From
the nature of things it could not, and the later
kings seem to have accepted the fact, and gone back
to the old plan of making their tombs conspicuous.
Now that it had become the established custom to
place all the royal tombs within a very restricted
area they may have thought that tomb-robbery was
securely provided against, seeing that it was very
much to the reigning king’s interest to see that the
royal burial site was protected. If they did, they
mightily deceived themselves. We know from in-
ternal evidence that Tut-ankh Amen’s tomb was
entered by robbers within ten, or at most fifteen,
years of his death. We also know, from graffiti in
the tomb of Thothmes IV, that that monarch too
had suffered at the hands of plunderers within a
very few years of his burial, for we find King
Hor-em-heb in the eighth year of his reign issuing
instructions to a certain high official named Maya
to ki renew the burial of King Thothmes IV, justified,
in the Precious Habitation in Western Thebes.”
They must have been bold spirits who made the
venture: they were evidently in a great hurry, and
we have reason to believe that they were caught
in the act. If so, we may be sure they died deaths
that were lingering and ingenious.

Strange sights The Valley must have seen, and
desperate the ventures that took place in it. One
can imagine the plotting for days beforehand, the
secret rendezvous on the cliff by night, the bribing
or drugging of the cemetery guards, and then the
desperate burrowing in the dark, the scramble

54

The Valley and the Tomb

through a small hole into the burial-chamber, the
hectic search by a glimmering light for treasure
that was portable, and the return home at dawn
laden with booty. We can imagine these things, and
at the same time we can realize how inevitable it all
was. By providing his mummy with the elaborate
and costly outfit which he thought essential to its
dignity, the king was himself compassing its destruc-
tion. The temptation was too great. Wealth beyond
the dreams of avarice lay there at the disposal of
whoever should find the means to reach it, and
sooner or later the tomb-robber was bound to win
through.

For a few generations, under the powerful kings of
the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties, The Valley
tombs must have been reasonably secure. Plunder-
ing on a big scale would be impossible without the
connivance of the officials concerned. In the Twen-
tieth Dynasty it was quite another story. There
were weaklings on the throne, a fact of which the
official classes, as ever, were quick to take advan-
tage. Cemetery guardians became lax and venial,
and a regular orgy of grave-robbing seems to have set
in. This is a fact of which we have actual first-hand
evidence, for there have come down to us, dating
from the reign of Rameses IX, a series of papyri
dealing with this very subject, with reports of
investigations into charges of tomb-robbery, and
accounts of the trial of the criminals concerned.
They are extraordinarily interesting documents. We
get from them, in addition to very valuable informa-
tion about the tombs, something which Egyptian
documents as a rule singularly lack, a story with a
real human element in it, and we are enabled to see

55

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

right into the minds of a group of officials who
lived in Thebes three thousand years ago.

The leading characters in the story are three,
Khamwese, the vizier, or governor of the district,
Peser, the mayor of that part of the city which lay
on the east bank, and Pewero, the mayor of the
western side, ex-officio guardian of the necropolis. The
two latter were evidently, one might say naturally,
on bad terms : each was jealous of the other. Con-
sequently, Peser was not ill pleased to receive one
day reports of tomb-plundering on an extensive scale
that was going on on the western bank. Here was
a chance to get his rival into trouble, so he has-
tened to report the matter to the vizier, giving,
somewhat foolishly, exact figures as to the tombs
which had been entered — ten royal tombs, four tombs
of the priestesses of Amen, and a long list of private
tombs

On the following day Khamwese sent a party of
officials across the river to confer with Pewero, and
to investigate the charges. The results of their
investigations were as follows. Of the ten royal tombs,
one was found to have been actually broken into,
and attempts had been made on two of the others.
Of the priestesses’ tombs, two were pillaged and two
were intact. The private tombs had all been plun-
dered. These facts were hailed by Pewero as a
complete vindication of his administration, an opinion
which the vizier apparently endorsed. The plunder-
ing of the private tombs was cynically admitted, but
what of that ? To people of our class what do the
tombs of private individuals matter ? Of the four
priestesses’ tombs two were plundered and two were
not. Balance the one against the other, and what

56

The Valley and the Tomb

cause has anyone to grumble? Of the ten royal
tombs mentioned by Peser only one had actually been
entered ; only one out of ten, so clearly his whole
story was a tissue of lies ! Thus Pewero, on the
principle, apparently, that if you are accused of
ten murders and are only found guilty of one, you
leave the court without a stain on your character.

As a celebration of his triumph Pewero col-
lected next day “ the inspectors, the necropolis
administrators, the workmen, the police, and all the
labourers of the necropolis ” and sent them as a
body to the east side, with instructions to make a
triumphant parade throughout the town generally,
but particularly in the neighbourhood of Peser’s
house. You may be sure they carried out this latter
part of their instructions quite faithfully. Peser
bore it as long as he could, but at last his feelings
got too much for him, and in an altercation with
one of the western officials he announced his in-
tention, in front of witnesses, of reporting the whole
matter to the king himself. This was a fatal error,
of which his rival was quick to take advantage. In
a letter to the vizier he accused the unfortunate
Peser — first, of questioning the good faith of a com-
mission appointed by his direct superior, and secondly,
of going over the head of that superior, and stating
his case directly to the king, a proceeding at which
the virtuous Pewero threw up his hands in horror,
as contrary to all custom and subversive of all dis-
cipline. This was the end of Peser. The offended
vizier summoned a court, a court in which the un-
happy man, as a judge, was bound himself to sit, and
in it he was tried for perjury and found guilty.

That in brief is the story : it is told at full

* 57

The Tomb of Tut-ankh'Amen

length in Vol. IV, par. 499 ff., of Breasted’s “ Ancient
Records of Egypt.” It is tolerably clear from it that
both the mayor and the vizier were themselves
implicated in the robberies in question. The investi-
gation they made was evidently a blind, for within
a year or two of these proceedings we find other
cases of tomb-robbing cropping up in the Court
records, and at least one of the tombs in question
occurs in Peser’s original list.

The leading spirits in this company of cemetery
thieves seem to have been a gang of eight men,
five of whose names have come down to us — the
stone-cutter Hapi, the artisan Iramen, the peasant
Amen-em-heb, the water-carrier Kemwese, and the
negro slave Ehenefer. They were eventually appre-
hended on the charge of having desecrated the royal
tomb referred to in the investigation, and we have
a full account of their trial. It began, according
to custom, by beating the prisoners “ with a
double rod, smiting their feet and their hands,” to
assist their memories. Under this stimulus they
made full confession. The opening sentences in the
confession are mutilated in the text, but they evi-
dently describe how the thieves tunnelled through
the rock to the burial chamber, and found the king
and queen in their sarcophagi : “ We penetrated
them all, we found her resting likewise.” The text
goes on

“ We opened their coffins, and their coverings in which
they were. We found the august mummy of this king.
. . . There was a numerous list of amulets and orna-
ments of gold at its throat ; its head had a mask of gold
upon it ; the august mummy of this king was overlaid
with gold throughout. Its coverings were wrought with

58

The Valley and the Tomb

gold and silver, within and without ; inlaid with every
costly stone. We stripped off the gold, which we found on
the august mummy of this god, and its amulets and orna-
ments which were at its throat, and the covering wherein
it rested. We found the king’s wife likewise ; we stripped
off all that we found on her likewise. We set fire to their
coverings. We stole their furniture, which we found with
them, being vases of gold, silver, and bronze. We divided, and
made the gold which we found on these two gods, on their
mummies, and the amulets, ornaments and coverings, into
eight parts.” 1

On this confession they were found guilty, and
removed to the house of detention, until such time as
the king himself might determine their punishment.

In spite of this trial and a number of others of
a similar character, matters in The Valley went
rapidly from [bad to worse. The tombs of Amen-
hetep III, Seti I, and Rameses II, are mentioned
in the Court records as having been broken into,
and in the following Dynasty all attempts at
guarding the tombs seem to have been abandoned,
and we find the royal mummies being moved about
from sepulchre to sepulchre in a desperate effort
to preserve them. Rameses III, for instance, was
disturbed and re-buried three times at least in this
Dynasty, and other kings known to have been trans-
ferred include Ahmes, Amen hetep I, Thothmes II,
and even Rameses the Great himself. In this last case
the docket states : —

“ Year 17, third month of the second season, day 6, day
of bringing Osiris, King Usermare-Setepnere (Rameses II),
to bury him again, in the tomb of Osiris, King Men-ma'Re-
Seti (I) : by the High Priest of Amen, Paynezem.”

1 Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. TV, par. 538.

59

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

A reign or two later we find Seti I and Raineses II
being moved from this tomb and re-buried in the
tomb of Queen Inhapi ; and in the same reign we get
a reference to the tomb we have been using as our
laboratory this year : —

“ Day of bringing King Men-pehti-Re (Rameses I) out
from the tomb of King Men-ma-Re-Seti (II), in order to
bring him into the tomb of Inhapi, which is in the Great
Place, wherein King Amen-hetep rests.”

No fewer than thirteen of the royal mummies found
their way at one time or another to the tomb of
Amen-hetep II, and here they were allowed to remain.
The other kings were eventually collected from their
various hiding places, taken out of The Valley alto-
gether, and placed in a well-hidden tomb cut in the
Deir el Bahari cliff. This was the final move, for by
some accident the exact locality of the tomb was
lost, and the mummies remained in peace for nearly
three thousand years.

Throughout all these troublous times in the
Twentieth and Twenty-first Dynasties there is no
mention of Tut-ankh-Amen and his tomb. He had
not escaped altogether — his tomb, as we have already
noted, having been entered within a very few years
of his death — but he was lucky enough to escape
the ruthless plundering of the later period. For some
reason his tomb had been overlooked. It was situ-
ated in a very low-lying part of The Valley, and a
heavy rain storm might well have washed away all
trace of its entrance. Or again, it may owe its safety
to the fact that a number of huts, for the use of
workmen who were employed in excavating the tomb
of a later king, were built immediately above it.

60

The Valley and the Tomb

With the passing of the mummies the history
of The Valley, as known to us from ancient Egyp-
tian sources, comes to an end. Five hundred years
had passed since Thothmes I had constructed his
modest little tomb there, and, surely in the whole
world’s history, there is no small plot of ground
that had five hundred years of more romantic
story to record. From now on we are to imagine
a deserted valley, spirit-haunted doubtless to the
Egyptian, its cavernous galleries plundered and
empty, the entrances of many of them open, to
become the home of fox, desert owl, or colonies
of bats. Yet, plundered, deserted and desolate as
were its tombs, the romance of it was not yet
wholly gone. It still remained the sacred Valley
of the Kings, and crowds of the sentimental and
the curious must still have gone to visit it. Some
of its tombs, indeed, were actually re-used in the
time of Osorkon I (about 900 b.c.) for the burial
of priestesses.

References to its rock-hewn passages are numer-
ous in classical authors, and that many of them were
still accessible to visitors in their day is evident from
the reprehensible manner in which, like John Smith,
1878, they carved their names upon the walls. A
certain Philetairos, son of Ammonios, who inscribed
his name in several places on the walls of the tomb
in which we had our lunch, intrigued me not a
little during the winter, though perhaps it would
have been better not to mention the fact, lest I
seem to countenance the beastly habits of the John
Smiths.

One final picture, before the mist of the Middle
Ages settles down upon The Valley, and hides it

61

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

from our view. There is something about the atmo-
sphere of Egypt — most people experience it I think
— that attunes one’s mind to solitude, and that is
probably one of the reasons why, after the con-
version of the country to Christianity, so many of its
inhabitants turned with enthusiasm to the hermit’s
life. The country itself, with its equable climate,
its narrow strip of cultivable land, and its desert
hills on either side, honeycombed with natural and
artificial caverns, was well adapted to such a pur-
pose. Shelter and seclusion were readily obtainable,
and that within easy reach of the outer world, and
the ordinary means of subsistence. In the early
centuries of the Christian era there must have been
thousands who forsook the world and adopted the
contemplative life, and in the rock-cut sepulchres
upon the desert hills we find their traces every-
where. Such an ideal spot as The Valley^of the
Kings could hardly pass unnoticed, and in the
II— IV centuries a.d. we find a colony of anchor-
ites in full possession, the open tombs in use as cells,
and one transformed into a church.

This, then, is our final glimpse of The Valley in
ancient times, and a strange incongruous picture it
presents. Magnificence and royal pride have been
replaced by humble poverty. The “ precious habita-
tion ” of the king has narrowed to a hermit’s cell.

6a

CHAPTER III

The Valley in Modern Times

F OR our first real description of The Valley in
modern times we must turn to the pages of
Richard Pococke, an English traveller who
in 1743 published 44 A Description of the East ’ in
several volumes. His account is extremely interest-
ing, and, considering the hurried nature of his visit,
extraordinarily accurate. Here is his description of
the approach to The Valley : —

44 The Sheik furnished me with horses, and we set out
to go to Biban-el-Meluke, and went about a mile to the
north, in a sort of street, on each side of which the rocky
ground about ten feet high has rooms cut into it, some of
them being supported with pillars; and, as there is not
the least sign in the plain of private buildings, I thought
that these in the very earliest times might serve as houses,
and be the first invention after tents, and contrived as
better shelter from wind, and cold of the nights. It is a
sort of gravelly stone, and the doors are cut regularly to
the street . 1 We then turned to the north west, enter’d
in between the high rocky hills, and went in a very
narrow valley. We after turn’d towards the south, and
then to the north west, going in all between the mountains
about a mile or a mile and a half. . . . We came to a
part that is wider, being a round opening like an amphi-
theatre and ascended by a narrow step passage about ten feet
high, which seems to have been broken down thro’ the rock,

1 They certainly have the appearance of houses, but actually they
are facade tombs of the Middle Kingdom.

63

The Tomb of Tut-ankh^Amen

the antient passage being probably from the Memnonium
under the hills, and it may be from the grottos I enter’d
on the other side. By this passage we came to Biban-el-
Meluke, or Bab-el-Meluke, that is, the gate or court of the
kings, being the sepulchres of the Kings of Thebes.” i

The tradition of a secret passage through the hills to
the Deir el Bahari side of the cliff is still to be found
among the natives, and to the present day there are
archaeologists who subscribe to it. There is, however,
little or no basis for the theory, and certainly not
a vestige of proof.

Pococke then goes on to an account of such of
the tombs as were accessible at the time of his
visit. He mentions fourteen in all, and most of
them are recognizable from his description. Of five
of them, those of Rameses IV. Rameses VI, Rameses
XII, Seti II, and the tomb commenced by Tausert
and finished by Set-nekht, he gives the entire plan.
In the case of four — Mer-en-Ptah, Rameses III,
Amen-meses and Rameses XI — he only planned the
outer galleries and chambers, the inner chambers
evidently being inaccessible ; and the remaining five
he speaks of as “ stopped up.” 2 It is evident from
Pococke’s narrative that he was not able to devote
as much time to his visit as he would have liked.
The Valley was not a safe spot to linger in, for the
pious anchorite we left in possession had given
place to a horde of bandits, who dwelt among the
Kurna hills, and terrorized the whole country-side.
“ The Sheik also was in haste to go,” he remarks,
“ being afraid, as I imagine, lest the people should

1 Pococke, A Description of the East , Vol. I., p. 97.

* From the evidence of graffiti these same tombs were open in classical
times. The Greek authors refer to them as fftipiyyes (syringes), from
their reed-like form.

64

The Valley in Modem Times

have opportunity to gather together if we staid out
long.”

These Theban bandits were notorious, and we find
frequent mention of them in the tales of eighteenth
century travellers. Norden, who visited Thebes in
1737, but who never got nearer The Valley than
the Ramasseum — he seems to have thought himself
lucky to have got so far — describes them thus :*

“ These people occupy, at present, the grottos, which
are seen in great numbers in the neighbouring mountains.
They obey no one ; they are lodged so high, that they
discover at a distance if anyone comes to attack them.
Then, if they think themselves strong enough, they descend
into the plain, to dispute the ground ; if not, they keep
themselves under shelter in their grottos, or they retire
deeper into the mountains, whither you would have no
great desire to follow them.” 1

Bruce, who visited The Valley in 1769, also
suffered at the hands of these bandits, and puts on
record a somewhat drastic, but fruitless, attempt,
made by one of the native governors, to curb their
activities : —

“ A number of robbers, who much resemble our gypsies,
live in the holes of the mountains above Thebes. They
are all outlaws, punished with death if elsewhere found.
Osman Bey, an ancient governor of Girge, unable to suffer
any longer the disorders committed by these people,
ordered a quantity of dried faggots to be brought together,
and, with his soldiers, took possession of the face of the
mountain, where the greatest number of these wretches
were : he then ordered all their caves to be filled with
this dry brushwood, to which he set fire, sc that most of

1 Norden, Travels in Egypt and Nubia , translated by Dr. Peter Temple-
man. London, 1757.

*>5

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

them were destroyed ; but they have since recruited their
numbers without changing their manners.” 1

In the course of this visit Bruce made copies of
the figures of harpers in the tomb of Rameses III,
a tomb which still goes by his name, but his labours
were brought to an abrupt conclusion. Finding
that it was his intention to spend the night in the
tomb, and continue his researches in the morning,
his guides were seized with terror, “ With great
clamour and marks of discontent, they dashed their
torches against the largest harp, and made the
best of their way out of the cave, leaving me and
my people in the dark ; and all the way as they
went, they made dreadful denunciations of tragical
events that were immediately to follow, upon their
departure from the cave.” That their terror was
genuine and not ill-founded, Bruce was soon to
discover, for as he rode down The Valley in the
gathering darkness, he was attacked by a party
of the bandits, who lay in wait for him, and hurled
stones at him from the side of the cliff. With the
aid of his gun and his servant’s blunderbuss he
managed to beat them off, but, on arriving at his
boat, he thought it prudent to cast off at once, and
made no attempt to repeat his visit.

Nor did even the magic of Napoleon’s name suffice
to curb the arrogance of these Theban bandits, for the
members of his scientific commission who visited
Thebes in the last days of the century were molested,
and even fired upon. They succeeded, however, in
making a complete survey of all the tombs then open,
and also carried out a small amount of excavation.

Let us pass on now to 1815, and make the ac-

1 Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Vol. I, p. 125.

66

The Valley in Modem Times

quaintance of one of the most remarkable men in the
whole history of Egyptology. In the early years of
the century, a young Italian giant, Belzoni by name,
was earning a precarious income in England by per-
forming feats of strength at fairs and circuses. Born
in Padua, of a respectable family of Roman extraction,
he had been intended for the priesthood, but a
roving disposition, combined with the internal troubles
in Italy at that period, had driven him to seek his
fortune abroad. We happened recently upon a refer-
ence to him in his pre-Egyptian days, in one of
“ Rainy Day ” Smith’s books of reminiscences, where
the author describes how he was carried round the
stage, with a group of other people, by the “strong
man” Belzoni. In the intervals of circus work Bel-
zoni seems to have studied engineering, and in 1815
he thought he saw a chance of making his fortune
by introducing into Egypt a hydraulic wheel, which
would, he claimed, do four times the work of the
ordinary native appliance. With this in view, he
made his way to Egypt, contrived an introduction to
Mohammed Ali the “ Bashaw,” and in the garden
of the palace actually set up his wheel. According
to Belzoni it was a great success, but the Egyptians
refused to have anything to do with it, and he found
himself stranded in Egypt.

Then, through the traveller Burchardt, he got
an introduction to Salt, the British Consul-General
in Egypt, and contracted with him to bring the
“colossal Memnion bust” (Rameses II, now in the
British Museum) from Luxor to Alexandria. This
was in 1815, and the next five years he spent in
Egypt, excavating and collecting antiquities, first for
Salt, and afterwards on his own account, and quarrel-

67 ,

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

ling with rival excavators, notably Drovetti, who
represented the French Consul. Those were the great
days of excavating. Anything to which a fancy was
taken, from a scarab to an obelisk, was just appro-
priated, and if there was a difference of opinion with
a brother excavator one laid for him with a gun.

Belzoni’s account of his experiences in Egypt,
published in 1820, is one of the most fascinating
books in the whole of Egyptian literature, and I
should like to quote from it at length — how, for in-
stance, he dropped an obelisk in the Nile and fished it
out again, and the full story of his various squabbles.
We must confine ourselves, however, to his actual
work in The Valley. Here he discovered and cleared
a number of tombs, including those of Ay, Mentu*
her-khepesh-ef, Rameses I, and Seti I. In the last
named he found the magnificent alabaster sarcoph-
agus which is now in the Soane Museum in London.

This was the first occasion on which excavations
on a large scale had ever been made in The Valley, and
we must give Belzoni full credit for the manner in which
they were carried out. There are episodes which give
the modern excavator rather a shock, as, for example,
when he describes his method of dealing with sealed
doorways — by means of a battering ram — but on the
whole the work was extraordinarily good. It is
perhaps worth recording the fact that Belzoni, like
everyone else who has ever dug in The Valley, was of
the opinion that he had absolutely exhausted its
possibilities. “ It is my firm opinion,” he states, “ that
in the Valley of Beban el Malook, there are no more
(tombs) than are now known, in consequence of my late
discoveries ; for, previously to my quitting that place,
I exerted all my humble abilities in endeavouring to

68

The Valley in Modem Times

find another tomb, but could not succeed ; and what
is a still greater proof, independent of my own re-
searches, after I quitted the place, Mr. Salt, the British
Consul, resided there four months and laboured in like
manner in vain to find another.”

In 1820 Belzoni returned to England, and gave
an exhibition of his treasures, including the alabaster
sarcophagus and a model of the tomb of Seti, in a
building which had been erected in Piccadilly in 1812,
a building which many of us can still remember — the
Egyptian Hall. He never returned to Egypt, but died
a few years later on an expedition to Timbuctoo.

For twenty years after Belzoni’s day The Valley
was well exploited, and published records come thick
and fast. We shall not have space here to do more
than mention a few of the names — Salt, Champollion,
Burton, Hay, Head, Rosellini, Wilkinson, who num-
bered the tombs, Rawlinson, Rhind. In 1844 the
great German expedition under Lepsius made a
complete survey of The Valley, and cleared the tomb
of Rameses II, and part of the tomb of Mer-en-Ptah.
Hereafter comes a gap; the German expedition was
supposed to have exhausted the possibilities, and
nothing more of any consequence was done in The
Valley until the very end of the century.

In this period, however, just outside The Valley,
there occurred one of the most important events
in the whole of its history. In the preceding chap-
ter we told how the various royal mummies were
collected from their hiding-places, and deposited
all together in a rock cleft at Deir el Bahari.
There for nearly three thousand years they had
rested, and there, in the summer of 1875, they
were found by the members of a Kurna family,

69

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

the Abd-el-Rasuls. It was in the thirteenth cen-
tury b.c. that the inhabitants of this village first
adopted the trade of tomb-robbing, and it is a
trade that they have adhered to steadfastly ever
since. Their activities are curbed at the present
day, but they still search on the sly in out-of-the-
way comers, and occasionally make a rich strike.
On this occasion the find was too big to handle.
It was obviously impossible to clear the tomb of
its contents, so the whole family was sworn to
secrecy, and its heads determined to leave the find
where it was, and to draw on it from time to time
as they needed money. Incredible as it may seem
the secret was kept for six years, and the family, with
a banking account of forty or more dead Pharaohs
to draw upon, grew rich.

It soon became manifest, from objects which
came into the market, that there had been a rich
find of royal material somewhere, but it was not
until 1881 that it was possible to trace the sale of
the objects to the Abd-el-Rasul family. Even then
it was difficult to prove anything. The head of the
family was arrested and subjected by the Mudir of
Keneh, the notorious Daoud Pasha, whose methods
of administering justice were unorthodox but effectual,
to an examination. Naturally he denied the charge,
and equally naturally the village of Kurna rose as
one man and protested that in a strictly honest com-
munity the Abd-el-Rasul family were of all men
the most honest. He was released provisionally for
lack of evidence, but his interview with Daoud seems
to have shaken him. Interviews with Daoud usually
did have that effect.

One of our older workmen told us once of an

70

The Valley in Modem Times

experience of his in his younger days. He had
been by trade a thief, and in the exercise of his
calling had been apprehended and brought before the
Mudir. It was a hot day, and his nerves were shaken
right at the start by finding the Mudir taking his
ease in a large earthenware jar of water. From this
unconventional seat of justice Daoud had looked
at him — just looked at him — •“ and as his eyes went
through me I felt my bones turning to water within
me. Then very quietly he said to me, ‘ This is the
first time you have appeared before me. You are
dismissed, but — be very, very careful that you do
not appear a second time,’ and I was so terrified
that I changed my trade and never did.”

Some effect of this sort must have been produced
on the Abd-el-Rasul family, for a month later one
of its members went to the Mudir and made full
confession. News was telegraphed at once to Cairo,
Emile Brugsch Bey of the Museum was sent up to
investigate and take charge, and on the 5th of July,
1881, the long-kept secret was revealed to him. It
must have been an amazing experience. There,
huddled together in a shallow, ill-cut grave, lay the
most powerful monarchs of the ancient East, kings
whose names were familiar to the whole world, but
whom no one in their wildest moments had ever
dreamt of seeing. There they had remained, where
the priests in secrecy had hurriedly brought them
that dark night three thousand years ago ; and
on their coffins and mummies, neatly docketed, were
the records of their journeyings from one hiding-place
to another. Some had been re-wrapped, and two or
three in the course of their many wanderings had con-
trived to change their coffins. In forty-eight hours

7i

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

— we don’t do things quite so hastily nowadays — the
tomb was cleared ; the kings were embarked upon
the Museum barge ; and within fifteen days of
Brugsch Bey’s arrival in Luxor, they were landed in
Cairo and were deposited in the Museum.

It is a familiar story, but worth repeating, that as
the barge made its way down the river the men of
the neighbouring villages fired guns as for a funeral,
while the women followed along the bank, tearing
their hair, and uttering that shrill quavering cry of
mourning for the dead, a cry that has doubtless
come right down from the days of the Pharaohs
themselves.

To return to The Valley. In 1898, acting on
information supplied by local officials, M. Loret,
then Director General of the Service of Antiquities,
opened up several new royal tombs, including those
of Thothmes I, Thothmes III, and Amen-hetep II
This last was a very important discovery. VVe have
already stated that in the Twenty-first Dynasty
thirteen royal mummies had found sanctuary in this
Amen-hetep’s tomb, and here in 1898 the thirteen were
found. It was but their mummies that remained.
The wealth, which in their power they had lavished
on their funerals, had long since vanished, but at
least they had been spared the last indignity. The
tomb had been entered, it is true ; it had been
robbed, and the greater part of the funeral equip-
ment had been plundered and broken, but it had
escaped the wholesale destruction that the other
royal tombs had undergone, and the mummies re-
mained intact. The body of Amen-hetep himself
still lay within its own sarcophagus, where it had
rested for more than three thousand years. Very

73

Plate VII

INTERIOR OF THE TOMB OF RAMESES IV, SHOWING THE SARCOPHAGI

The Valley in Modem Times

rightly the Government, at the representation of Sir
William Garstin, decided against its removal. The
tomb was barred and bolted, a guard was placed
upon it, and there the king was left in peace.

Unfortunately there is a sequel to this story.
Within a year or two of the discovery the tomb
was broken into by a party of modem tomb-
robbers, doubtless with the connivance of the guard,
and the mummy was removed from its sarcophagus
and searched for treasure. The thieves were sub-
sequently tracked down by the Chief Inspector of
Antiquities, and arrested, although he was unable
to secure their conviction at the hands of the
Native Court. The whole proceedings, as set forth
in the official report, remind one very forcibly of
the records of ancient tomb-robbery described in the
preceding chapter, and we are forced to the con-
clusion that in many ways the Egyptian of the
present day differs little from his ancestor in the
reign of Rameses IX.

One moral we can draw from this episode, and
we commend it to the critics who call us Vandals
for taking objects from the tombs. By removing
antiquities to museums we are really assuring their
safety : left in situ they would inevitably, sooner
or later, become the prey of thieves, and that,
for all practical purposes, would be the end of
them.

In 1902 permission to dig in The Valley under
Government supervision was granted to an Ameri-
can, Mr. Theodore Davis, and he subsequently
excavated there for twelve consecutive seasons. His
principal finds are known to most of us. They
include the tombs of Thothmes IV, Hat-shep-sut,

6 73

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

Si-Ptah, Yua and Thua — great-grandfather and grand-
mother these of Tut-ankh-Amen’s queen — Hor-em-heb,
and a vault, not a real tomb, devised for the transfer
of the burial of Akh-en-Aten from its original tomb at
Tell el Amarna. This cache comprised the mummy
and coffin of the heretic king, a very small part of
his funerary equipment, and portions of the sepul-
chral shrine of his mother Tyi. In 1914 Mr. Davis’s
concession reverted to us, and the story of the tomb
of Tut-ankh-Amen really begins.

74

CHAPTER IV

Oue Prefatory Work at Thebes

E VER since my first visit to Egypt in 1890
it had been my ambition to dig in The
Valley, and when, at the invitation of Sir
William Garstin and Sir Gaston Maspero, I began
to excavate for Lord Carnarvon in 1907, it was our
joint hope that eventually we might be able to
get a concession there. I had, as a matter of fact,
when Inspector of the Antiquities Department, found,
and superintended the clearing of, two tombs in
The Valley for Mr. Theodore Davis, and this had
made me the more anxious to work there under a
regular concession. For the moment it was impos-
sible, and for seven years we dug with varying for-
tune in other parts of the Theban necropolis.
The results of the first five of these years have
been published in “ Five Years’ Explorations at
Thebes,” a joint volume brought out by Lord Car-
narvon and myself in 1912.

In 1914 our discovery of the tomb of Amen-
hetep I, on the summit of the Drah abu’l Negga
foothills, once more turned our attention Valley-
wards, and we awaited our chance with some im-
patience. Mr. Theodore Davis, who still held the
concession, had already published the fact that he
considered The Valley exhausted, and that there
were no more tombs to be found, a statement cor-
roborated by the fact that in his last two seasons

75

The Tomb of Tut ankh-Amen

he did very little work in The Valley proper, but
spent most of his time excavating in the approach
thereto, in the neighbouring north valley, where he
hoped to find the tombs of the priest kings and of
the Eighteenth Dynasty queens, and in the mounds
surrounding the Temple of Medinet Habu. Never-
theless he was loath to give up the site, and it was
not until June, 1914, that we actually received the
long-coveted concession. Sir Gaston Maspero, Director
of the Antiquities Department, who signed our con-
cession, agreed with Mr. Davis that the site was
exhausted, and told us frankly that he did not
consider that it would repay further investigation.
We remembered, however, that nearly a hundred
years earlier Belzoni had made a similar claim, and
refused to be convinced. We had made a thorough
investigation of the site, and were quite sure that
there were areas, covered by the dumps of pre-
vious excavators, which had never been properly
examined.

Clearly enough we saw that very heavy work
lay before us, and that many thousands of tons of
surface debris would have to be removed before we
could hope to find anything ; but there was always
the chance that a tomb might reward us in the
end, and, even if there was nothing else to go upon,
it was a chance that we were quite willing to take.
As a matter of fact we had something more, and,
at the risk of being accused of post actum prescience,
I will state that we had definite hopes of finding
the tomb of one particular king, and that king
Tut-ankh - Amen.

To explain the reasons for this belief of ours
we must turn to the published pages of Mr. Davis’s

76

Our Prefatory Work at Thebes

excavations. Towards the end of his work in The
Valley he had found, hidden under a rock, a faience
cup which ^bore the name of Tut-ankh-Amen. In
the same region he came upon a small pit-tomb, in
which were found an unnamed alabaster statuette,
possibly of Ay,£and a broken wooden box, in which
were fragments of gold foil, bearing the figures
and names of Tut-ankh-Amen and his queen. On
the basis of these fragments of gold he claimed that
he had actually found the burial place of Tut-ankh-
Amen. The theory was quite untenable, for the pit-
tomb in question was small and insignificant, of a
type that might very well belong to a member of
the royal household in the Ramesside period, but
ludicrously inadequate for a king’s burial in the
Eighteenth Dynasty. Obviously, the royal material
found in it had been placed there at some later
period, and had nothing to do with the tomb itself.

Some little distance eastward from this tomb,
he had also found in one of his earlier years of
work (1907-8), buried in an irregular hole cut in
the side of the rock, a cache of large pottery jars,
with sealed mouths, and hieratic inscriptions upon
their shoulders. A cursory examination was made
of their contents, and as these seemed to consist
merely of broken pottery, bundles of linen, and
other oddments, Mr. Davis refused to be interested
in them, and they were laid aside and stacked away
in the store-room of his Valley house. There, some
while afterwards, Mr. Winlock noticed them, and
immediately realized their importance. With Mr.
Davis’s consent the entire collection of jars was
packed and sent to the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, and there Mr. Winlock made a

77

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

thorough examination of their contents. Extra-
ordinarily interesting they proved to be. There
were clay seals, some bearing the name of Tut*
ankh-Amen and others the impression of the
royal necropolis seal, fragments of magnificent
painted pottery vases, linen head-shawls — one in-
scribed with the latest known date of Tut-ankh-
Amen’s reign — floral collars, of the kind repre-
sented as worn by mourners in burial scenes, and
a mass of other miscellaneous objects ; the whole
representing, apparently, the material which had
been used during the funeral ceremonies of Tut-
ankh ’Amen, and afterwards gathered together and
stacked away within the jars.

We had thus three distinct pieces of evidence —
the faience cup found beneath the rock, the gold
foil from the small pit-tomb, and this important
cache of funerary material — which seemed definitely
to connect Tut-ankh-Amen with this particular part
of The Valley. To these must be added a fourth.
It was in the near vicinity of these other finds that
Mr. Davis had discovered the famous Akh-en-Aten
cache. This contained the funerary remains of heretic
royalties, brought hurriedly from Tell el Amarna and
hidden here for safety, and that it was Tut-ankh-Amen
himself who was responsible for their removal and
reburial we can be reasonably sure from the fact
that a number of his clay seals were found.

With all this evidence before us we were thoroughly
convinced in our own minds that the tomb of Tut-
ankh-Amen was still to find, and that it ought to be
situated not far from the centre of The Valley. In
any case, whether we found Tut-ankh-Amen or not,
we felt that a systematic and exhaustive search of

78

Our Prefatory Work at Thebes

the inner valley presented reasonable chances of suc-
cess, and we were in the act of completing our plans
for an elaborate campaign in the season of 1914-15
when war broke out, and for the time being all our
plans had to be left in abeyance.

War- work claimed most of my time for the next few
years, but there were occasional intervals in which I
was able to carry out small pieces of excavation. In
February, 1915, for example, I made a complete
clearance of the interior of the tomb of Amen-hetep
III, partially excavated in 1799 by M. Devilliers,
one of the members of Napoleon’s “ Commission
d’ligypte,” and re-excavated later by Mr. Theodore
Davis. In the course of this work we made the
interesting discovery, from the evidence of intact
foundation-deposits outside the entrance, and from
other material found within the tomb, that it had
been originally designed by Thothmes IV, and that
Queen Tyi had actually been buried there.

The following year, while on a short holiday at
Luxor, I found myself involved quite unexpectedly
in another piece of work. The absence of officials
owing to the war, to say nothing of the general
demoralization caused by the war itself, had natur-
ally created a great revival of activity on the part
of the local native tomb-robbers, and prospecting
parties were out in all directions. News came into
the village one afternoon that a find had been made
in a lonely and unfrequented region on the western
side of the mountain above The Valley of the Kings.
Immediately a rival party of diggers armed them-
selves and made their way to the spot, and in the
lively engagement that ensued the original party
were beaten and driven off, vowing vengeance.

79

The Tomb of Tut ankh-Amen

To avert further trouble the notables of the
village came to me and asked me to take action.
It was already late in the afternoon, so I hastily
collected the few of my workmen who had escaped
the Army Labour Levies, and with the necessary
materials set out for the scene of action, an ex-
pedition involving a climb of more than 1,800 feet
over the Kurna hills by moonlight. It was mid-
night when we arrived on the scene, and the guide
pointed out to me the end of a rope which dangled
sheer down the face of a cliff. Listening, we could
hear the robbers actually at work, so I first severed
their rope, thereby cutting off their means of escape,
and then, making secure a good stout rope of my
own, I lowered myself down the cliff. Shinning
down a rope at midnight, into a nestful of industrious
tomb-robbers, is a pastime which at least does not
lack excitement. There were eight at work, and
when I reached the bottom there was an awkward
moment or two. I gave them the alternative of
clearing out by means of my rope, or else of stay-
ing where they were without a rope at all, and
eventually they saw reason and departed. The rest of
the night I spent on the spot, and, as soon as it
was light enough, climbed down into the tomb again
to make a thorough investigation.

The tomb was in a most remarkable situation
(Plate VIII). Its entrance was contrived in the
bottom of a natural water-worn cleft, 180 feet from
the top of the cliff, and 220 feet above the valley bed,
and so cunningly concealed that neither from the top
nor the bottom could the slightest trace of it be
seen. From the entrance a lateral passage ran straight
into the face of the cliff, a distance of some 55 feet,

8o

Plate VIII

VIEW SHOWING POSITION OF HAT ■ SHEP • SUT’S CLEFT-TOMB.

Our Prefatory Work at Thebes

after which it turned at right angles, and a short
passage, cut on a sharp slope, led down into a chamber
about 18 feet square. The whole place was full of
rubbish from top to bottom, and through this rubbish
the robbers had burrowed a tunnel over 90 feet long,
just big enough for a man to crawl through.

It was an interesting discovery, and might turn
out to be very important, so I determined to make
a complete clearance. Twenty days it took, working
night and day with relays of workmen, and an extra-
ordinarily difficult job it proved. The method of
gaining access to the tomb by means of a rope from
the top was unsatisfactory, for it was not a very
safe proceeding at best, and it necessitated, more-
over, a stiff climb from the valley. Obviously
means of access from the valley-bottom would
be preferable, and this we contrived by erecting
sheers at the entrance to the tomb, so that by a
running tackle we could pull ourselves up or let
ourselves down. It was not a very comfortable
operation even then, and I personally always made
the descent in a net.

Excitement among the workmen ruled high as
the work progressed, for surely a place so well con-
cealed must contain a wonderful treasure, and great
was their disappointment when it proved that the
tomb had neither been finished nor occupied.
The only thing of value it contained was a large
sarcophagus of crystalline sandstone, like the tomb,
unfinished, with inscriptions which showed it to
have been intended for Queen Hat-shep-sut. Pre-
sumably this masterful lady had had the tomb
constructed for herself as wife of King Thothmes II.
Later, when she seized the throne and ruled actually

81

The Tomb of Tut-ankhAmen

as a king, it was clearly necessary for her to have
her tomb in The Valley like all the other kings —
as a matter of fact I found it there myself in 1903
—and the present tomb was abandoned. She would
lave been better advised to hold to her original
plan. In this secret spot her mummy would have
lad a reasonable chance of avoiding disturbance :
n The Valley it had none. A king she would be,
md a king’s fate she shared.

In the autumn of 1917 our real campaign in The
Galley opened. The difficulty was to know where
,o begin, for mountains of rubbish thrown out by
irevious excavators encumbered the ground in all
lirections, and no sort of record had ever been kept
is to which areas had been properly excavated and
vhich had not. Clearly the only satisfactory thing
o do was to dig systematically right down to bed-
ock, and I suggested to Lord Carnarvon that we
ake as a starting-point the triangle of ground defined
>y the tombs of Rameses II, Mer en-Ptah, and
lameses VI, the area in which we hoped the tomb
if Tut-ankh-Amen might be situated.

It was rather a desperate undertaking, the site
ieing piled high with enormous heaps of thrown-
ut rubbish, but I had reason to believe that the
round beneath had never been touched, and a strong
onviction that we should find a tomb there. In
tie course of the season’s work we cleared a con-
iderable part of the upper layers of this area, and
dvanced our excavations right up to the foot of
ic tomb of Rameses VI. Here we came on a series
f workmen’s huts ( see Plate X), built over masses of
int boulders, the latter usually indicating in The
alley the near proximity of a tomb. Our natural

82

Plate IX

REMOVING SURFACE DEBRIS IN SEARCH OF THE TOMB OF TUT ANK.H AMEN.

Our Prefatory Work at Thebes

impulse was to enlarge our clearing in this direction,
but by doing this we should have cut off all access
to the tomb of Rameses above, to visitors one of
the most popular tombs in the whole Valley. We
determined to await a more convenient opportunity.
So far the only results from our work were some
ostraca , 1 interesting but not exciting.

We resumed our work in this region in the season
of 1919-20. Our first need was to break fresh ground
for a dump, and in the course of this preliminary
work we lighted on some small deposits of Rameses
IV, near the entrance to his tomb. The idea this
year was to clear the whole of the remaining part
of the triangle already mentioned, so we started in
with a fairly large gang of workmen. By the time
Lord and Lady Carnarvon arrived in March the whole
of the top debris had been removed, and we were
ready to clear down into what we believed to be
virgin ground below. We soon had proof that we
were right, for we presently came upon a small cache
containing thirteen alabaster jars, bearing the names
of Rameses II and Mer-en-Ptah, probably from the
tomb of the latter. As this was the nearest approach
to a real find that we had yet made in The Valley,
we were naturally somewhat excited, and Lady
Carnarvon, I remember, insisted on digging out these
jars — beautiful specimens they were — with her own
hands.

With the exception of the ground covered by the
workmen’s huts, we had now exhausted the whole
of our triangular area, and had found no tomb. I
was still hopeful, but we decided to leave this par-

1 Potsherds and flakes of limestone, used for sketching and writing
purposes.

83

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

ticular section until, by making a very early start
in the autumn, we could accomplish it without
causing inconvenience to visitors.

For our next attempt we selected the small lateral
valley in which the tomb of Thothmes III was
situated. This occupied us throughout the whole
of the two following seasons, and, though nothing
intrinsically valuable was found, we discovered an
interesting archaeological fact. The actual tomb in
which Thothmes III was buried had been found by
Loret in 1898, hidden in a cleft in an inaccessible
spot some way up the face of the cliff. Excavating
in the valley below, we came upon the beginning
of a tomb, by its foundation-deposits originally
intended for the same king. Presumably, while the
work on this low-level tomb was in progress, it
occurred to Thothmes or to his architect that the
cleft in the rock above was a better site. It certainly
presented better chances of concealment, if that were
the reason for the change ; though probably the more
plausible explanation would be that one of the tor-
rential downpours of rain which visit Luxor occasion-
ally may have flooded out the lower tomb, and
suggested to Thothmes that his mummy would have
a more comfortable resting-place on a higher level.

Near by, at the entrance to another abandoned
tomb, we came upon foundation-deposits of his wife
Meryt-Re*Hat*shep-sut, sister of the great queen of
that name. Whether we are to infer that she
was buried there is a moot point, for it would be
contrary to all custom to find a queen in The Valley.
In any case the tomb was afterwards appropriated
by the Theban official, Sen-nefer.

We had now dug in The Valley for several seasons

»4

Our Prefatory Work at Thebes

with extremely scanty results, and it became a much
debated question whether we should continue the
work, or try for a more profitable site elsewhere.
After these barren years were we justified in going
on with it? My own feeling was that so long as a
single area of untouched ground remained the risk
was worth taking. It is true that you may find less
in more time in The Valley than in any other site in
Egypt, but, on the other hand, if a lucky strike be
made, you will be repaid for years and years of dull
and unprofitable work.

There was still, moreover, the combination of
flint boulders and workmen’s huts at the foot of
the tomb of Rameses VI to be investigated, and I
had always had a kind of superstitious feeling that
in that particular corner of The Valley one of the
missing kings, possibly Tut-ankh-Amen, might be
found. Certainly the stratification of the debris there
should indicate a tomb. Eventually we decided to
devote a final season to The Valley, and, by making
an early start, to cut off access to the tomb of
Rameses VI, if that should prove necessary, at a
time when it would cause least inconvenience to
visitors. That brings us to the present season and
the results that are known to everyone.

85

CHAPTER V

The Finding of the Tomb

T HE history of The Valley, as I have endea-
voured to show in former chapters, has never
lacked the dramatic element, and in this,
the latest episode, it has held to its traditions. For
consider the circumstances. This was to be our final
season in The Valley. Six full seasons we had ex-
cavated there, and season after season had drawn a
blank ; we had worked for months at a stretch and
found nothing, and only an excavator knows how
desperately depressing that can be ; we had almost
made up our minds that we were beaten, and were
preparing to leave The Valley and try our luck
elsewhere ; and then — hardly had we set hoe to
ground in our last despairing effort than we made a
discovery that far exceeded our wildest dreams.
Surely, never before in the whole history of excava-
tion has a full digging season been compressed within
the space of five days.

Let me try and tell the story of it all. It will
not be easy, for the dramatic suddenness of the
initial discovery left me in a dazed condition, and the
months that have followed have been so crowded with
incident that I have hardly had time to think.
Setting it down on paper will perhaps give me a
chance to realize what has happened and all that
it means.

I arrived in Luxor on October 28th, and by

86

Plate XI

VIEW OF THE ROYAL CEMETERY: SHOWING THE RELATIVE POSITION
OF THE TOMBS OF TUT ANKH- AMEN (a) AND RAMESES VI (b).

The Finding of the Tomb

November 1st I had enrolled my workmen and was
ready to begin. Our former excavations had stopped
short at the north-east corner of the tomb of Raineses
VI, and from this point I started trenching south-
wards. It will be remembered that in this area there
were a number of roughly constructed workmen’s
huts, used probably by the labourers in the tomb of
Rameses. These huts, built about three feet above
bed-rock, covered the whole area in front of the
Ramesside tomb, and continued in a southerly
direction to join up with a similar group of huts on
the opposite side of The Valley, discovered by Davis
in connexion with his work on the Akh-en-Aten
cache. By the evening of November 3rd we had
laid bare a sufficient number of these huts for experi-
mental purposes, so, after we had planned and noted
them, they were removed, and we were ready to
clear away the three feet of soil that lay beneath
them.

Hardly had I arrived on the work next morning
(November 4th) than the unusual silence, due to the
stoppage of the work, made me realize that something
out of the ordinary had happened, and I was greeted
by the announcement that a step cut in the rock
had been discovered underneath the very first hut
to be attacked. This seemed too good to be true,
but a short amount of extra clearing revealed the
fact that we were actually in the entrance of a steep
cut in the rock, some thirteen feet below the entrance
to the tomb of Rameses VI, and a similar depth from
the present bed level of The Valley (Plate XI). The
manner of cutting was that of the sunken stairway
entrance so common in The Valley, and I almost
dared to hope that we had found our tomb at last.

»7

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

Work continued feverishly throughout the whole of
that day and the morning of the next, but it was not
until the afternoon of November 5th that we suc-
ceeded in clearing away the masses of rubbish that
overlay the cut, and were able to demarcate the
upper edges of the stairway on all its four sides
(Plate XII).

It was clear by now beyond any question that
we actually had before us the entrance to a tomb,
but doubts, born of previous disappointments, per-
sisted in creeping in. There was always the horrible
possibility, suggested by our experience in the
Thothmes III Valley, that the tomb was an un-
finished one, never completed and never used : if
it had been finished there was the depressing prob-
ability that it had been completely plundered in
ancient times. On the other hand, there was just
the chance of an untouched or only partially plun-
dered tomb, and it was with ill-suppressed excite-
ment that I watched the descending steps of the
staircase, as one by one they came to light. The
cutting was excavated in the side of a small hillock,
and, as the work progressed, its western edge receded
under the slope of the rock until it was,' first partially,
and then completely, roofed in, and became a passage,
10 feet high by 6 feet wide. Work progressed more
rapidly now ; step succeeded step, and at the level
of the twelfth, towards sunset, there was disclosed the
upper part of a doorway, blocked, plastered, and sealed.

A sealed doorway — it was actually true, then !
Our years of patient labour were to be rewarded
after all, and I think my first feeling was one of
congratulation that my faith in The Valley had not
been unjustified. With excitement growing to fever

88

The Finding of the Tomb

heat I searched the seal impressions on the door for
evidence of the identity of the owner, but could find
no name : the only decipherable ones were those of
the well-known royal necropolis seal, the jackal and
nine captives. Two facts, however, were clear : first,
the employment of this royal seal was certain evidence
that the tomb had been constructed for a person of
very high standing ; and second, that the sealed door
was entirely screened from above by workmen’s huts
of the Twentieth Dynasty was sufficiently clear
proof that at least from that date it had never been
entered. With that for the moment I had to be
content.

While examining the seals I noticed, at the top
of the doorway, where some of the plaster had fallen
away, a heavy wooden lintel. Under this, to assure
myself of the method by which the doorway had been
blocked, I made a small peephole, just large enough
to insert an electric torch, and discovered that the
passage beyond the door was filled completely from
floor to ceiling with stones and rubble — additional
proof this of the care with which the tomb had been
protected.

It was a thrilling moment for an excavator. Alone,
save for my native workmen, I found myself, after
years of comparatively unproductive labour, on the
threshold of what might prove to be a magnificent
discovery. Anything, literally anything, might lie
beyond that passage, and it needed all my self-
control to keep from breaking down the doorway,
and investigating then and there.

One thing puzzled me, and that was the smallness
of the opening in comparison with the ordinary
Valley tombs. The design was certainly of the

h 89

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

Eighteenth Dynasty. Could it be the tomb of a noble
buried here by royal consent ? Was it a royal
cache, a hiding-place to which a mummy and its
equipment had been removed for safety ? Or was
it actually the tomb of the king for whom I had
spent so many years in search ?

Once more I examined the seal impressions for
a clue, but on the part of the door so far laid bare only
those of the royal necropolis seal already mentioned
were clear enough to read. Had I but known that
a few inches lower down there was a perfectly clear
and distinct impression of the seal of Tut-ankh-
Amen, the king I most desired to find, I would have
cleared on, had a much better night’s rest in con-
sequence, and saved myself nearly three weeks of
uncertainty. It was late, however, and darkness
was already upon us. With some reluctance I
re-closed the small hole that I had made, filled in
our excavation for protection during the night,
selected the most trustworthy of my workmen —
themselves almost as excited as I was — to watch
all night above the tomb, and so home by moonlight,
riding down The Valley.

Naturally my wish was to go straight ahead with
our clearing to find out the full extent of the dis-
covery, but Lord Carnarvon was in England, and in
fairness to him I had to delay matters until he
could come. Accordingly, on the morning of Novem-
ber 6th I sent him the following cable : — “ At last
have made wonderful discovery in Valley ; a mag-
nificent tomb with seals intact; re-covered same for
your arrival ; congratulations.”

My next task was to secure the doorway against
interference until such time as it could finally be

90

Plate XIII

THE SIXTEEN STEPS,

The Finding of the Tomb

re-opened. This we did by filling our excavation
up again to surface level, and rolling on top of it
the large flint boulders of which the workmen’s
huts had been composed. By the evening of the
same day, exactly forty-eight hours after we had
discovered the first step of the staircase, this was
accomplished. The tomb had vanished. So far as
the appearance of the ground was concerned there
never had been any tomb, and I found it hard to
persuade myself at times that the whole episode had
not been a dream.

I was soon to be reassured on this point. News
travels fast in Egypt, and within two days of the
discovery congratulations, inquiries, and offers of help
descended upon me in a steady stream from all
directions. It became clear, even at this early stage,
that I was in for a job that could not be tackled
single-handed, so I wired to Callender, who had
helped me on various previous occasions, asking him
if possible to join me without delay, and to my
relief he arrived on the very next day. On the 8th
I had received two messages from Lord Carnarvon
in answer to my cable, the first of which read, “ Pos-
sibly come soon,” and the second, received a little
later, “ Propose arrive Alexandria 20th.”

We had thus nearly a fortnight’s grace, and we
devoted it to making preparations of various kinds,
so that when the time of re-opening came, we should
be able, with the least possible delay, to handle
any situation that might arise. On the night of
the 18th I went to Cairo for three days, to meet
Lord Carnarvon and make a number of necessary
purchases, returning to Luxor on the 21st. On the
23rd Lord Carnarvon arrived in Luxor with his

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, his devoted com-
panion in all his Egyptian work, and everything was
in hand for the beginning of the second chapter of
the discovery of the tomb. Callender had been busy
all day clearing away the upper layer of rubbish, so
that by morning we should be able to get into the
staircase without any delay.

By the afternoon of the 24th the whole staircase
was clear, sixteen steps in all (Plate XIII), and we were
able to make a proper examination of the sealed
doorway. On the lower part the seal impressions
were much clearer, and we were able without any
difficulty to make out on several of them the name of
Tut-ankh-Amen (Plate XIV). This added enormously
to the interest of the discovery. If we had found, as
seemed almost certain, the tomb of that shadowy mon-
arch, whose tenure of the throne coincided with one of
the most interesting periods in the whole of Egyptian
history, we should indeed have reason to congratulate
ourselves.

With heightened interest, if that were possible,
we renewed our investigation of the doorway. Here
for the first time a disquieting element made its
appearance. Now that the whole door was exposed
to light it was possible to discern a fact that had
hitherto escaped notice — that there had been two
successive openings and re-closings of a part of its
surface : furthermore, that the sealing originally
discovered, the jackal and nine captives, had been
applied to the re-closedf portions, whereas the sealings
of Tut-ankh-Amen covered the untouched part of
the doorway, and were therefore those with which
the tomb had been originally secured. The tomb
then was not absolutely intact, as we had hoped.

9 ®

The Finding of the Tomb

Plunderers had entered it, and entered it more than
once — from the evidence of the huts above, plunderers
of a date not later than the reign of Rameses VI —
but that they had not rifled it completely was evident
from the fact that it had been re-sealed. 1

Then came another puzzle. In the lower strata
of rubbish that filled the staircase we found masses of
broken potsherds and boxes, the latter bearing the
names of Akh en-Aten, Smenkh'ka’Re and Tut-ankh*
Amen, and, what was much more upsetting, a scarab
of Thothmes III and a fragment with the name of
Amen hetep III. Why this mixture of names ?
The balance of evidence so far would seem to indicate
a cache rather than a tomb, and at this stage in the
proceedings we inclined more and more to the opinion
that we were about to find a miscellaneous collection
of objects of the Eighteenth Dynasty kings, brought
from Tell el Amama by Tut-ankh-Amen and deposited
here for safety.

So matters stood on the evening of the 24th.
On the following day the sealed doorway was to
be removed, so Callender set carpenters to work
making a heavy wooden grille to be set up in its
place. Mr. Enge bach. Chief Inspector of the An-
tiquities Department, paid us a visit during the
afternoon, and witnessed part of the final clearing
of rubbish from the doorway.

On the morning of the 25th the seal impres-
sions on the doorway were carefully noted and photo-
graphed, and then we removed the actual blocking
of the door, consisting of rough stones carefully built

1 From later evidence we found that this re-sealing could not have
taken place later than the reign of Horemheb, i.e. from ten to fifteen
years after the burial.

93

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

from floor to lintel, and heavily plastered on their
outer faces to take the seal impressions.

This disclosed the beginning of a descending
passage (not a staircase), the same width as the
entrance stairway, and nearly seven feet high. As
I had already discovered from my hole in the door-
way, it was filled completely with stone and rubble,
probably the chip from its own excavation. This
filling, like the doorway, showed distinct signs of
more than one opening and re-closing of the tomb,
the untouched part consisting of clean white chip,
mingled with dust, whereas the disturbed part was
composed mainly of dark flint. It was clear that an
irregular tunnel had been cut through the original
filling at the upper comer on the left side, a tunnel
corresponding in position with that of the hole in
the doorway.

As we cleared the passage we found, mixed with
the rubble of the lower levels, broken potsherds,
jar sealings, alabaster jars, whole and broken, vases
of painted pottery, numerous fragments of smaller
articles, and water skins, these last having obviously
been used to bring up the water needed for the
plastering of the doorways. These were clear evi-
dence of plundering, and we eyed them askance.
By night we had cleared a considerable distance down
the passage, but as yet saw no sign of second
doorway or of chamber.

The day following (November 26th) was the day
of days, the most wonderful that I have ever lived
through, and certainly one whose like I can never
hope to see again. Throughout the morning the work
of clearing continued, slowly perforce, on account of
the delicate objects that were mixed with the filling.

The Finding of the Tomb

Then, in the middle of the afternoon, thirty feet
down from the outer door, we came upon a second
sealed doorway, almost an exact replica of the first.
The seal impressions in this case were less distinct,
but still recognizable as those of Tut-ankh-Amen and
of the royal necropolis. Here again the signs of
opening and re-closing were clearly marked upon
the plaster. We were firmly convinced by this time
that it was a cache that we were about to open, and
not a tomb. The arrangement of stairway, entrance
passage and doors reminded us very forcibly of the
cache of Akh-en-Aten and Tyi material found in
the very near vicinity of the present excavation by
Davis, and the fact that Tut-ankh-Amen’s seals
occurred there likewise seemed almost certain proof
that we were right in our conjecture. We were soon
to know. There lay the sealed doorway, and behind
it was the answer to the question.

Slowly, desperately slowly it seemed to us as we
watched, the remains of passage debris that encum-
bered the lower part of the doorway were removed,
until at last we had the whole door clear before us.
The decisive moment had arrived. With trembling
hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left hand
corner. Darkness and blank space, as far as an
iron testing-rod could reach, showed that whatever
lay beyond was empty, and not filled like the passage
we had just cleared. Candle tests were applied as a
precaution against possible foul gases, and then,
widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and
peered in, Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn and Callen-
der standing anxiously beside me to hear the verdict.
At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from
the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but

95

The Tomb of TutankhAmen

presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light,
details of the room within emerged slowly from the
mist, strange animals, statues, and gold — everywhere
the glint of gold. For the moment — an eternity it
must have seemed to the others standing by — I
was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord
Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer,
inquired anxiously, “ Can you see anything ? ” it
was all I could do to get out the words, “ Yes, w r on-
derful things.” Then widening the hole a little
further, so that we both could see, we inserted an
electric torch.

96

ii

r’asV^

y s «_ x

■ SBK 1 8

l?*g

iiiiiiiiii

1

Plate XV

IEW OF THE ANTECHAMBER AS SEEN FROM THE PASSAGE THROUGH

T1TF! STEEL (;RILLE.

CHAPTER VI

A Preliminary Investigation

I SUPPOSE most excavators would confess to a
feeling of awe — embarrassment almost — when
they break into a chamber closed and sealed
by pious hands so many centuries ago. For the
moment, time as a factor in human life has lost its
meaning. Three thousand, four thousand years may-
be, have passed and gone since human feet last trod
the floor on which you stand, and yet, as you note
the signs of recent life around you — the half-filled
bowl of mortar for the door, the blackened lamp,
the finger-mark upon the freshly painted surface,
the farewell garland dropped upon the threshold —
you feel it might have been but yesterday. The
very air you breathe, unchanged throughout the
centuries, you share with those who laid the mummy
to its rest. Time is annihilated by little intimate
details such as these, and you feel an intruder.

That is perhaps the first and dominant sensation,
but others follow thick and fast — the exhilaration of
discovery, the fever of suspense, the almost over-
mastering impulse, born of curiosity, to break down
seals and lift the lids of boxes, the thought — pure
joy to the investigator — that you are about to add
a page to history, or solve some problem of research,
the strained expectancy — why not confess it ? — of the
treasure-seeker. Did these thoughts actually pass
through our minds at the time, or have I imagined

97

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

them since ? I cannot tell. It was the discovery
that my memory was blank, and not the mere desire
for dramatic chapter-ending, that occasioned this
digression.

Surely never before in the whole history of exca-
vation had such an amazing sight been seen as the
light of our torch revealed to us. The reader can
get some idea of it by reference to the photographs
on Plates XVI-XX, but these were taken afterwards
when the tomb had been opened and electric light
installed. Let him imagine how they appeared to
us as we looked down upon them from our spy-hole
in the blocked doorway, casting the beam of light
from our torch — the first light that had pierced
the darkness of the chamber for three thousand
'years — from one group of objects to another, in a
vain attempt to interpret the treasure that lay
before us. The effect was bewildering, overwhelming.
I suppose we had never formulated exactly in our
minds just what we had expected or hoped to see,
but certainly we had never dreamed of anything
like this, a roomful — a whole museumful it seemed
— of objects, some familiar, but some the like of
which we had never seen, piled one upon another
in seemingly endless profusion.

Gradually the scene grew clearer, and we could
pick out individual objects. First, right opposite to
us — we had been conscious of them all the while,
but refused to believe in them — were three great
gilt couches, their sides carved in the form of mon-
strous animals, curiously attenuated in body, as
they had to be to serve their purpose, but with
heads of startling realism. Uncanny beasts enough
to look upon at any time : seen as we saw them,

o8

A Preliminary Investigation

their brilliant gilded surfaces picked out of the dark-
ness by our electric torch, as though by limelight,
their heads throwing grotesque distorted shadows on
the wall behind them, they were almost terrifying.
Next, on the right, two statues caught and held our
attention ; two life-sized figures of a king in black,
facing each other like sentinels, gold kilted, gold
sandalled, armed with mace and staff, the protective
sacred cobra upon their foreheads.

These were the dominant objects that caught the
eye at first. Between them, around them, piled on
top of them, there were countless others — exquisitely
painted and inlaid caskets ; alabaster vases, some
beautifully carved in openwork designs ; strange
black shrines, from the open door of one a great
gilt snake peeping out ; bouquets of flowers or leaves ;
beds ; chairs beautifully carved ; a golden inlaid
throne ; a heap of curious white oviform boxes ;
staves of all shapes and designs ; beneath our eyes,
on the very threshold of the chamber, a beautiful
lotiform cup of translucent alabaster ; on the left
a confused pile of overturned chariots, glistening
with gold and inlay ; and peeping from behind them
another portrait of a king.

Such were some of the objects that lay before us.
Whether we noted them all at the time I cannot
say for certain, as our minds were in much too excited
and confused a state to register accurately. Presently
it dawned upon our bewildered brains that in all
this medley of objects before us there was no coffin
or trace of mummy, and the much-debated question
of tomb or cache began to intrigue us afresh. With
this question in view we re-examined the scene
before us, and noticed for the first time that between

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

the^two black sentinel statues on the right there
was another sealed doorway. The explanation gra-
dually dawned upon us. We were but on the thres-
hold of our discovery. What we saw was merely
an antechamber. Behind the guarded door there
were to be other chambers, possibly a succession of
them, and in one of them, beyond any shadow of
doubt, in all his magnificent panoply of death, we
should find the Pharaoh lying.

We had seen enough, and our brains began to
reel at the thought of the task in front of us. We
re-closed the hole, locked the wooden grille that had
been placed upon the first doorway, left our native
staff on guard, mounted our donkeys and rode home
down The Valley, strangely silent and subdued.

It was curious, as we talked things over in the
evening, to find how conflicting our ideas were as to
what we had seen. Each of us had noted something
that the others had not, and it amazed us next day
to discover how many and how obvious were the
things that we had missed. Naturally, it was the
sealed door between the statues that intrigued us
most, and we debated far into the night the possi-
bilities of what might lie behind it. A single chamber
with the king’s sarcophagus ? That was the least
we might expect. But why one chamber only ?
Why not a succession of passages and chambers,
leading, in true Valley style, to an innermost shrine
of all, the burial chamber ? It might be so, and yet
in plan the tomb was quite unlike the others. Visions
of chamber after chamber, each crowded with objects
like the one we had seen, passed through our minds
and left us gasping for breath. Then came the
thought of the plunderers again. Had they suc-

lOO

A Preliminary Investigation

ceeded in penetrating this third doorway — seen from
a distance it looked absolutely untouched — and, if
so, what were our chances of finding the king’s
mummy intact ? I think we slept but little, all of
us, that night.

Next morning (November 27th) we were early
on the field, for there was much to be done. It was
essential, before proceeding further with our exam-
ination, that we should have some more adequate
means of illumination, so Callender began laying wires
to connect us up with the main lighting system of
The Valley. While this was in preparation we made
careful notes of the seal-impressions upon the inner
doorway and then removed its entire blocking. By
noon everything was ready and Lord Carnarvon,
Lady Evelyn, Callender and I entered the tomb
and made a careful inspection of the first chamber
(afterwards called the Antechamber). The evening
before I had written to Mr. Engelbach, the Chief
Inspector of the Antiquities Department, advising
him of the progress of clearing, and asking him to
come over and make an official inspection. Un-
fortunately he was at the moment in Kena on official
business, so the local Antiquities Inspector, Ibraham
Effendi, came in his stead.

By the aid of our powerful electric lamps many
things that had been obscure to us on the previous
day became clear, and we were able to make a more
accurate estimate of the extent of our discovery.
Our first objective was naturally the sealed door
between the statues, and here a disappointment
awaited us. Seen from a distance it presented all
the appearance of an absolutely intact blocking, but
close examination revealed the fact that a small

IOI

The Tomb of Tut'ankh'Amen

breach had been made near the bottom, just wide
enough to admit a boy or a slightly built man, and
that the hole made had subsequently been filled
up and re-sealed. We were not then to be the first.
Here, too, the thieves had forestalled us, and it only
remained to be seen how much damage they had
had the opportunity or the time to effect.

Our natural impulse was to break down the door,
and get to the bottom of the matter at once, but to
do so would have entailed serious risk of damage to
many of the objects in the Antechamber, a risk
which we were by no means prepared to face. Nor
could we move the objects in question out of the
way, for it was imperative that a plan and complete
photographic record should be made before anything
was touched, and this was a task involving a con-
siderable amount of time, even if we had had suffi-
cient plant available — which we had not — to carry it
through immediately. Reluctantly we decided to
abandon the opening of this inner sealed door until
we had cleared the Antechamber of all its contents.
By doing this we should not only ensure the complete
scientific record of the outer chamber which it was
our duty to make, but should have a clear field for
the removal of the door-blocking, a ticklish operation
at best.

Having satisfied to some extent our curiosity
about the sealed doorway, we could now turn our
attention to the rest of the chamber, and make a
more detailed examination of the objects which it
contained. It was certainly an astounding experi-
ence. Here, packed tightly together in this little
chamber, were scores of objects, any one of which
would have filled us with excitement under ordinary

102

A Preliminary Investigation

circumstances, and been considered ample repayment
for a full season’s work. Some were of types well
enough known to us ; others were new and strange,
and in some cases these were complete and perfect
examples of objects whose appearance we had here-
tofore but guessed at from the evidence of tiny
broken fragments found in other royal tombs.

Nor was it merely from a point of view of quantity
that the find was so amazing. The period to which
the tomb belongs is in many respects the most
interesting in the whole history of Egyptian art,
and we were prepared for beautiful things. What
we were not prepared for was the astonishing vitality
and animation which characterized certain of the
objects. It was a revelation to us of unsuspected
possibilities in Egyptian art, and we realized, even
in this hasty preliminary survey, that a study of
the material would involve a modification, if not a
complete revolution, of all our old ideas. That,
however, is a matter for the future. We shall get
a clearer estimate of exact artistic values when we
have cleared the whole tomb and have the complete
contents before us.

One of the first things we noted in our survey
was that all of the larger objects, and most of the
smaller ones, were inscribed with the name of Tut*
ankh*Amen. His, too, were the seals upon the inner-
most door, and therefore his, beyond any shadow of
doubt, the mummy that ought to lie behind it.
Next, while we were still excitedly calling each other
from one object to another, came a new discovery.
Peering beneath the southernmost of the three
great couches, we noticed a small irregular hole in
the wall. Here was yet another sealed doorway, and

103

The Tomb of Tut ankh' Amen

a plunderers* hole, which, unlike the others, had never
been repaired. Cautiously we crept under the couch,
inserted our portable light, and there before us lay
another chamber, rather smaller than the first, but
even more crowded with objects.

The state of this inner room (afterwards called
the Annexe) simply defies description. In the Ante-
chamber there had been some sort of an attempt to
tidy up after the plunderers’ visit, but here everything
was in confusion, just as they had left it. Nor did it
take much imagination to picture them at their
work. One — there would probably not have been
room for more than one — had crept into the chamber,
and had then hastily but systematically ransacked
its entire contents, emptying boxes, throwing things
aside, piling them one upon another, and occasionally
passing objects through the hole to his companions
for closer examination in the outer chamber. He
had done his work just about as thoroughly as an
earthquake. Not a single inch of floor space remains
vacant, and it will be a matter of considerable diffi-
culty, when the time for clearing comes, to know how r
to begin. So far we have not made any attempt to
enter the chamber, but have contented ourselves
with taking stock from outside. Beautiful things it
contains, too, smaller than those in the Antechamber
for the most part, but many of them of exquisite
workmanship. Several things remain in my mind
particularly — a painted box, apparently quite as
lovely as the one in the Antechamber ; a wonderful
chair of ivory, gold, wood, and leaf her- work ; ala-
baster and faience vases of beautiful form ; and a
gaming board, in carved and coloured ivory.

I think the discovery of this second chamber,

104

A Preliminary Investigation

with its crowded contents, had a somewhat sobering
effect upon us. Excitement had gripped us hitherto,
and given us no pause for thought, but now for the
first time we began to realize what a prodigious task
we had in front of us, and what a responsibility it
entailed. This was no ordinary find, to be disposed
of in a normal season’s work ; nor was there any
precedent to show us how to handle it. The thing
was outside all experience, bewildering, and for the
moment it seemed as though there were more to be
done than any human agency could accomplish.

Moreover, the extent of our discovery had taken
us by surprise, and we were wholly unprepared to
deal with the multitude of objects that lay before
us, many in a perishable condition, and needing
careful preservative treatment before they could be
touched. There were numberless things to be done
before we could even begin the work of clearing.
Vast stores of preservatives and packing material
must be laid in ; expert advice must be taken as to
the best method of dealing with certain objects ;
provision must be made for a laboratory, some safe
and sheltered spot in which the objects could be
treated, catalogued and packed ; a careful plan to
scale must be made, and a complete photographic
record taken, while everything was still in position ;
a dark-room must be contrived.

These were but a few of the problems that con-
fronted us. Clearly, the first thing to be done was
to render the tomb safe against robbery ; we could
then with easy minds work out our plans — plans
which we realized by this time would involve, not
one season only, but certainly two, and possibly
three or four. We had our wooden grille at the

i 105

The Tomb of Tut-ankh'Amen

entrance to the passage, but that was not enough,
and I measured up the inner doorway for a gate of
thick steel bars. Until we could get this made for
us — and for this and for other reasons it was im-
perative for me to visit Cairo — we must go to the
labour of filling in the tomb once more.

Meanwhile the news of the discovery had spread
like wildfire, and all sorts of extraordinary and
fanciful reports were going abroad concerning it;
one story, that found considerable credence among
the natives, being to the effect that three aeroplanes
had landed in The Valley, and gone off to some
destination unknown with loads of treasure. To
overtake these rumours as far as possible, we decided
on two things — first, to invite Lord Allenby and
the various heads of the departments concerned
to come and pay a visit to the tomb, and secondly,
to send an authoritative account of the discovery to
The Times. On the 29th, accordingly, we had an
official opening of the tomb, at which were present
Lady Allenby — Lord Allenby was unfortunately un-
able to leave Cairo — Abd el Aziz Bey Yehia, the
Governor of the Province, Mohamed Bey Fahmy,
Mamour of the District, and a number of other
Egyptian notables and officials ; and on the 30th
Mr. Tottenham, Adviser to the Ministry of Public
Works, and M. Pierre Lacau, Director-General of the
Service of Antiquities, who had been unable to be
present on the previous day, made their official
inspection. Mr. Merton, The Times correspondent,
was also present at the official opening, and sent the
dispatch which created so much excitement at home.

On December 8rd, after closing up the entrance
doorway with heavy timber, the tomb was filled to

106

A Preliminary Investigation

surface level. Lord Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn
left on the 4th, on their way to England, to conclude
various arrangements there, preparatory to return-
ing later in the season ; and on the 6th, leaving
Callender to watch over the tomb in my absence,
I followed them to Cairo to make my purchases.
My first care was the steel gate, and I ordered it
the morning I arrived, under promise that it should
be delivered within six days. The other purchases
I took more leisurely, and a miscellaneous collection
they were, including photographic material, chemi-
cals, a motor-car, packing-boxes of every kind, with
thirty-two bales of calico, more than a mile of wad-
ding, and as much again of surgical bandages. Of
these last two important items I was determined not
to run short.

While in Cairo I had time to take stock of the
position, and it became more and more clear to me
that assistance — and that on a big scale — was neces-
sary if the work in the tomb was to be carried out
in a satisfactory manner. The question was, where
to turn for this assistance. The first and pressing
need was in photography, for nothing could be
touched until a complete photographic record
had been made, a task involving technical skill of
the highest order. A day or two after I arrived in
Cairo I received a cable of congratulation from Mr.
Lythgoe, Curator of the Egyptian Department of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, whose
concession at Thebes ran in close proximity to our
own, being only divided by the natural mountain
wall, and in my reply I somewhat diffidently in-
quired whether it would be possible — for the imme-
diate emergency, at any rate — to secure the assist-

107

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

ance of Mr. Harry Burton, their photographic expert.
He promptly cabled back, and his cable ought to
go on record as an example of disinterested scientific
co-operation: “Only too delighted to assist in any
possible way. Please call on Burton and any other
members of our staff.”

This offer was subsequently most generously con-
firmed by the Trustees and the Director of the
Metropolitan Museum, and on my return to Luxor
I arranged with my friend Mr. Winlock, the director
of the New York excavations on that concession,
and who was to be the actual sufferer under the
arrangement, not only that Mr. Burton should be
transferred, but that Mr. Hall and Mr. Hauser,
draughtsmen to the expedition, should devote such
of their time as might be necessary to make a large-
scale drawing of the Antechamber and its contents.
Another member of the New York staff, Mr. Mace,
director of their excavations on the pyramid field at
Lisht, was also available, and at Mr. Lythgoe’s
suggestion cabled offering help. Thus no fewer than
four members of the New York staff were for whole
or part time associated in the work of the season.
Without this generous help it would have been
impossible to tackle the enormous amount of work in
front of us.

Another piece of luck befell me in Cairo. Mr.
Lucas, Director of the Chemical Department of the
Egyptian Government, was taking three months’
leave prior to retiring from the Government on com-
pletion of service, and for this three months he
generously offered to place his chemical knowledge
at our disposal, an offer which, needless to say, I
hastened to accept. That completed our regular

INTERIOR OF ANTECHAMBER : THE ENTRANCE WITH STEEL G.

A Preliminary Investigation

working staff. In addition, Dr. Alan Gardiner kindly
undertook to deal with any inscriptional material
that might be found, and Professor Breasted, in a
couple of visits, gave us much assistance in the
difficult task of deciphering the historical significance
of the seal impressions from the doors.

By December 13th the steel gate was finished and
I had completed my purchases. I returned to Luxor,
and on the 15th everything arrived safely in The
Valley, delivery of the packages having been greatly
expedited by the courtesy of the Egyptian State Rail-
way officials, who permitted them to travel by express
instead of on the slow freight train. On the 16th
we opened up the tomb once more, and on the 17th
the steel gate was set up in the door of the chamber
and we were ready to begin work. On the 18th
work was actually begun, Burton making his first
experiments in the Antechamber, and Hall and
Hauser making a start on their plan. Two days
later Lucas arrived, and at once began experimenting
on preservatives for the various classes of objects.

On the 22nd, as the result of a good deal of
clamour, permission to see the tomb was given to
the Press, both European and native, and the oppor-
tunity was also afforded to a certain number of the
native notables of Luxor, who had been disappointed
at not receiving an invitation to the official open-
ing. It had only been possible on that occasion to
invite a very limited number, owing to a difficulty
of ensuring the safety of the objects in the very
narrow space that was available. On the 25th Mace
arrived, and two days later, photographs and plans
being sufficiently advanced, the first object was
removed from the tomb.

i°9

CHAPTER VII

A Survey of the Antechamber

I N this chapter we propose to make a detailed survey
of the objects in the Antechamber, and it will give
the reader a better idea of things if we make it
systematically, and do not range backwards and for-
wards from one end of it to the other, as in the
first excitement of discovery we naturally did. It
was but a small room, some 26 feet by 12 feet, and
we had to tread warily, for, though the officials had
cleared for us a small alley-way in the centre, a
single false step or hasty movement would have in-
flicted irreparable damage on one of the delicate
objects with which we were surrounded.

In front of us, in the doorway — we had to step
over it to get into the chamber — lay the beautiful
wishing-cup shown on Plate XL VI. It was of pure
semi-translucent alabaster, with lotus-flower handles
on either side, supporting the kneeling figures which
symbolize Eternity. Turning right as we entered, we
noticed, first, a large cylindrical jar of alabaster ;
next, two funerary bouquets of leaves, one leaning
against the wall, the other fallen ; and in front of
them, standing out into the chamber, a painted
wooden casket (see Plate XXI). This last will probably
rank as one of the greatest artistic treasures of the
tomb, and on our first visit we found it hard to tear
ourselves away from it. Its outer face was completely
covered with gesso ; upon this prepared surface there

IIO

A Survey of the Antechamber

were a series of brilliantly coloured and exquisitely
painted designs — hunting scenes upon the curved
panels of the lid, battle scenes upon the sides, and
upon the ends representations of the king in lion
form, trampling his enemies under his feet. The
illustrations on Plates L-LIV give but a faint idea
of the delicacy of the painting, which far surpasses
anything of the kind that Egypt has yet produced.
No photograph could do it justice, for even in the
original a magnifying glass is essential to a due
appreciation of the smaller details, such as the
stippling of the lions’ coats, or the decoration of the
horses’ trappings.

There is another remarkable thing about the
painted scenes upon this box. The motives are
Egyptian and the treatment Egyptian, and yet they
leave an impression on your mind of something
strangely non-Egyptian, and you cannot for the life
of you explain exactly where the difference lies.
They remind you of other things, too — the finest
Persian miniatures, for instance — and there is a
curious floating impression of Benozzo Gozzoli, due,
maybe, to the gay little tufts of flowers which fill
the vacant spaces. The contents of the box were a
queer jumble. At the top there were a pair of rush
and papyrus sandals, and a royal robe, completely
covered with a decoration of beadwork and gold
sequins. Beneath them were other decorated robes,
one of which had had attached to it upwards of
three thousand gold rosettes, three pairs of Court
sandals elaborately worked in gold, a gilt head-rest,
and other miscellaneous objects. This was the first
box we opened, and the ill-assorted nature of its
contents — to say nothing of the manner in which

in

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

they were crushed and bundled together — was a con-
siderable puzzle to us. The reason of it became
plain enough later, as we shall show in the following
chapter.

Next, omitting some small unimportant objects,
we came to the end (north) wall of the chamber.
Here was the tantalizing sealed doorway, and on
either side of it, mounting guard over the entrance,
stood the life-size wooden statues of the king already
described. Strange and imposing figures these, even
as we first saw them, surrounded and half concealed
by other objects : as they stand now in the empty
chamber, with nothing in front of them to distract
the eye, and beyond them, through the opened door,
the golden shrine half visible, they present an appear-
ance that is almost painfully impressive. Originally
they were shrouded in shawls of linen, and this, too,
must have added to the effect. One other point
about this end wall, and an interesting one. Unlike
the other walls of the chamber, its whole surface
was covered with plaster, and a close examination
revealed the fact that from top to bottom it was
but a blind, a mere partition wall.

Turning now to the long (west) wall of the cham-
ber, we found the whole of the wall-space occupied
by the three great animal-sided couches, curious
pieces of furniture which we knew from illustrations
in the tomb paintings, but of w'hich we had never
seen actual examples before. The first was lion-
headed, the second cow-headed, and the third had
the head of a composite animal, half hippopotamus
and half crocodile. Each was made in four pieces
for convenience in carrying, the frame of the actual
bed fitting by means of hook and staple to the

113

A Survey of the Antechamber

animal sides, the feet of the animals themselves fit-
ting into an open pedestal. As is usually the case
in Egyptian beds, each had a foot panel but nothing
at the head. Above, below, and around these couches,
packed tightly together, and in some cases perched
precariously one upon another, was a miscellany of
smaller objects, of which we shall only have space
here to mention the more important.

Thus, resting on the northernmost of the couches
— the lion-headed one — there was a bed of ebony
and woven cord, with a panel of household gods
delightfully carved, and, resting upon this again,
there were a collection of elaborately decorated staves,
a quiverful of arrows, and a number of compound
bows. One of these last was cased with gold and
decorated with bands of inscription and animal
motives in granulated work of almost inconceivable
fineness — a masterpiece of jewellers’ craft. Another,
a double compound bow, terminated at either end
in the carved figure of a captive, so arranged that
their necks served as notches for the string, the
pleasing idea being that every time the king used
the bow he bow-strung a brace of captives. Be-
tween bed and couch there were four torch-holders
of bronze and gold, absolutely new in type, one with
its torch of twisted linen still in position in the oil-
cup ; a charmingly wrought alabaster libation vase ;
and, its lid resting askew, a casket, with decorative
panels of brilliant turquoise-blue faience and gold.
This casket, as we found later in the laboratory,
contained a number of interesting and valuable
objects, among others a leopard-skin priestly robe,
with decoration of gold and silver stars and gilt
leopard-head, inlaid with coloured glass ; a very

113

The Tomb of Tut-ankhAmen

large and beautifully worked scarab of gold and lapis
lazuli blue glass ; a buckle of sheet gold, with a
decoration of hunting scenes applied in infinitesimally
small granules ; a sceptre in solid gold and lapis
lazuli glass (Plate XXIII) ; beautifully coloured
collarettes and necklaces of faience ; and a handful
of massive gold rings, twisted up in a fold of linen —
of which more anon.

Beneath the couch, resting on the floor, stood a
large chest, made of a delightful combination of
ebony, ivory, and red wood, which contained a
number of small vases of alabaster and glass ; two
black wooden shrines, each containing the gilt figure
of a snake, emblem and standard of the tenth nome
of Upper Egypt (Aphroditopolis) ; a delightful little
chair, with decorative panels of ebony, ivory, and
gold, too small for other than a child’s use ; two
folding duck-stools, inlaid with ivory ; and an
alabaster box, w r ith incised ornamentation filled in
with pigments.

A long box of ebony and white painted wood,
with trellis-worked stand and hinged lid, stood free
upon the floor in front of the couch. Its contents
were a curious mixture. At the top, crumpled to-
gether and stuffed in as packing, there were shirts
and a number of the king’s under-garments, whereas
below% more or less orderly arranged upon the bottom
of the box, there were sticks, bows, and a large num-
ber of arrows, the points of these last having all
been broken off and stolen for their metal. As
originally deposited, the box probably contained
nothing but sticks, bows and arrows, and included
not only those from the top of the bed already
described, but a number of others which had been

114

A Survey of the Antechamber

scattered in various quarters of the chamber. Some
of the sticks were of very remarkable workmanship.
One terminated in a curve, on which were fashioned
the figures of a pair of captives, with tied arms and
interlocked feet, the one an African, the other an
Asiatic, their faces carved in ebony and ivory re-
spectively. The latter figure, an almost painfully
realistic [piece of work, is shown on Plate LXX. On
another of the sticks a very effective decoration was
contrived by arranging minute scales of iridescent
beetle-wings in a pattern, while in others again
there was an applied pattern of variegated barks.
With the sticks there were a whip in ivory and
four cubit measures. To the left of the couch,
between it and the next one, there were a toilet table
and a cluster of wonderful perfume jars in carved
alabaster {see Plate XXII).

So much for the first couch. The second, the
cow-headed one, facing us as we entered the chamber,
was even more crowded. Resting precariously on
top of it there was another bed of wood, painted
white, and, balanced on top of this again, a rush-
work chair, extraordinarily modern-looking in appear-
ance and design, and an ebony and red-wood stool.
Below the bed and resting actually on the framework
of the couch, there were, among other things, an
ornamental white stool, a curious rounded box of
v ivory and ebony veneer, and a pair of gilt sistra
— instruments of music that are usually associated
with Hathor, the goddess of joy and dancing 1
(Plate XXIII). Below, the centre space was occupied
by a pile of oviform wooden cases, containing trussed
ducks and a variety of other food offerings.

1 These are two of the attributes of Hathor. There are many others

”5

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

Standing on the floor in front of the couch there
were two wooden boxes, one having a collarette and
a pad of rings resting loose upon its lid ; a large
stool of rush-work, and a smaller one of wood and
reed. The larger of the two boxes had an interest-
ing and varied list of contents. A docket, written
in hieratic on the lid, quotes seventeen objects ol
lapis lazuli blue, and within there were sixteen liba-
tion vases of blue faience, the seventeenth being
found subsequently in another part of the chamber.
In addition, thrown carelessly in, there were a
number of other faience cups; a pair of electrum
boomerangs, mounted at either end with blue faience ;
a beautiful little casket of carved ivory; a calcite
wine-strainer; a very elaborate tapestry- woven gar-
ment ; and the greater part of a corslet. This last
— which we shall have occasion to describe at some
length in Chapter X — was composed of several thou-
sand pieces of gold, glass, and faience, and there is
no doubt that when it has been cleaned and its
various parts assembled it will be the most imposing
thing of its kind that Egypt has ever produced.
Between this couch and the third one, tilted care-
lessly over on to its side, lay a magnificent cedar-
wood chair, elaborately and delicately carved, and
embellished with gold ( see Plate LX).

We come now to the third couch, flanked by its
pair of queer composite animals, with open mouths,
and teeth and tongue of ivory. Resting on top of
it in solitary state there was a large round-topped
chest, with ebony frame and panels painted white.
This was originally the chest of under-linen. It still
contained a number of garments — loin-cloths, etc. —
most of them folded and rolled into neat little

116

A B

Plate XXIII

(a) THE KING’S SCEPTRE OF GOLD AND LAPIS LAZULI BLUE
GLASS, (b) TWO SISTRA OF GILT WOOD AND BRONZE.

A Survey of the Antechamber

bundles . 1 Below this couch stood another of the
great artistic treasures of the tomb — perhaps the
greatest so far taken out — a throne, overlaid with
gold from top to bottom, and richly adorned with
glass, faience, and stone inlay ( see Plate XXIV). Its
legs, fashioned in feline form, were surmounted by lions’
heads, fascinating in their strength and simplicity.
Magnificent crowned and winged serpents formed the
arms, and between the bars which supported the back
there were six protective cobras, carved in wood,
gilt and inlaid. It was the panel of the back, how-
ever, that was the chief glory of the throne, and I
have no hesitation in claiming for it that it is the
most beautiful thing that has yet been found in
Egypt. A photograph, which without colour gives
but a very inadequate idea of its beauty, is shown
on Plate II.

The scene is one of the halls of the palace, a room
decorated with flower-garlanded pillars, frieze of
urcei (royal cobras), and dado of conventional
“ recessed ” panelling. Through a hole in the roof
the sun shoots down his life-giving protective rays.
The king himself sits in an unconventional attitude
upon a cushioned throne, his arm thrown carelessly
across its back. Before him stands the girlish figure
of the queen, putting, apparently, the last touches
to his toilet : in one hand she holds a small jar of
scent or ointment, and with the other she gently
anoints his shoulder or adds a touch of perfume to
his collar. A simple homely little composition, but
how instinct with life and feeling it is, and with
what a sense of movement !

i These, on our first entrance into the tomb, were mistaken for roils
of papyrus.

1 1 7

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

The colouring of the panel is extraordinarily vivid
and effective. The face and other exposed portions
of the bodies, both of king and queen, are of red
glass, and the head-dresses of brilliant turquoise-like
faience. The robes are of silver, dulled by age to
an exquisite bloom. The crowns, collars, scarves,
and other ornamental details of the panel are all
inlaid, inlay of coloured glass and faience, of carne-
lian, and of a composition hitherto unknown — translu-
cent fibrous calcite, underlaid with coloured paste,
in appearance for all the world like millefiori glass.
As background we have the sheet gold with which
the throne was covered. In its original state, with
gold and silver fresh and new, the throne must have
been an absolutely dazzling sight — too dazzling,
probably, for the eye of a Westerner, accustomed
to drab skies and neutral tints : now, toned down a
little by the tarnishing of the alloy, it presents a
colour scheme that is extraordinarily attractive and
harmonious.

Apart altogether from its artistic merit, the throne
is an important historical document, the scenes upon
it being actual illustrations of the politico-religious
vacillations of the reign. In original conception —
witness the human arms on the sun-disk in the back
panel — they are based on pure Tell el Amarna Aten
worship. The cartouches, however, are curiously
mixed. In some of them the Aten element has been
erased and the Amen form substituted, whereas in
others the Aten remains unchallenged. It is curious,
to say the least of it, that an object which bore such
manifest signs of heresy upon it should be publicly
buried in this, the stronghold of the Amen faith,
and it is perhaps not without significance that on

118

Plate XXIV

THRONE ANn FnnTCTnm nrvp i m.r

A Survey of the Antechamber

this particular part of the throne there were remains
of a linen wrapping. It would appear that Tut*
ankh-Amen’s return to the ancient faith was not
entirely a matter of conviction. He may have
thought the throne too valuable a possession to
destroy, and have kept it in one of the more private
apartments of the palace ; or, again, it is possible
that the alteration in the Aten names was sufficient
to appease the sectarians, and that there was no
need for secrecy.

Upon the seat of the throne rested the footstool
that originally stood before it, a stool of gilded wood
and dark blue faience, with panels on the top and
sides on which were represented captives, bound and
prone. This was a very common convention in the
East — “ until I make thine enemies thy footstool,”
sings the Psalmist — and we may be sure that on
certain occasions convention became actual fact.

Before the couch there were two stools, one of
plain wood painted white, the other of ebony, ivory,'
and gold, its legs carved in the shape of ducks’ heads,
its top made in the semblance of leopard skin, with
claws and spots of ivory — the finest example we
know of its kind. Behind it, resting against the
south wall of the chamber, there were a number of
important objects. First came a shrine-shaped box
with double doors, fastened by shooting bolts of
ebony. This was entirely cased with thick sheet-
gold, and on the gold, in delicate low relief, there
were a series of little panels (shown on Plate LXVIII),
depicting, in delightfully naive fashion, a number
of episodes in the daily life of king and queen. In
all of these scenes the dominant note is that of
friendly relationship between the husband and the

119

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

wife, the unselfconscious friendliness that marks the
Tell el Amarna school, and one would not be sur-
prised to find that here, too, there had been a change
in the cartouches from the Aten to the Amen.
Within the shrine there was a pedestal, showing that
it had originally contained a statuette : it may well
have been a gold one, an object, unfortunately, too
conspicuous for the plunderers to overlook. It also
contained a necklace of enormous beads, gold, car-
nelian, green feldspar and blue glass, to which was
attached a large gold pendant in the shape of a very
rare snake goddess ; and considerable portions of the
corslet already referred to in our description of one
of the earlier boxes.

Beside this shrine there was a large shawabti
statuette of the king, carved, gilded, and painted,
and a little farther along, peering out from behind
the overturned body of a chariot, a statue of pecu-
liar form, cut sharp off at waist and elbows. This
was exactly life-size, and its body was painted white
in evident imitation of a shirt ; there can be very
little doubt that it represents a mannequin, to which
the king’s robes, and possibly his collars, could be
fitted (Plate XXV). There were also in this same
quarter of the chamber another toilet box and the
scattered pieces of a gilt canopy or shrine. These
last were of extremely light construction, and were
made to fit rapidly one to another. The canopy
was probably a travelling one, carried in the king’s
train wherever he went, and set up at a moment’s
notice to shield him from the sun.

The rest of the south wall and the whole of the
east, as far as the entrance doorway, were taken
up by the parts of no fewer than four chariots. As

Plate XXV

A Survey of the Antechamber

the photograph shows, they were heaped together in
terrible confusion, the plunderers having evidently
turned them this way and that, in their endeavours
to secure the more valuable portions of the gold
decoration which covered them. Theirs not the
whole responsibility, however. The entrance passage
was far too narrow to admit the ingress of complete
chariots, so, to enable them to get into the chamber,
the axles were deliberately sawn in two, the wheels
dismounted and piled together, and the dismembered
bodies placed by themselves.

In the re-assembling and restoration of these
chariots we have a prodigious task ahead of us, but
the results will be gorgeous enough to justify any
amount of time that is bestowed upon them. From
top to bottom they are covered with gold, every
inch of which is decorated, either with embossed
patterns and scenes upon the gold itself, or with
inlaid designs in coloured glass and stone. The
actual woodwork of the chariots is in good condition
and needs but little treatment, but with the horse-
trappings and other leather parts it is quite another
story, the untanned leather having been affected by
the damp and turned into a black, unpleasant-looking
glue. Fortunately these leather parts were, in almost
every instance, plated with gold, and from this gold,
which is well preserved, we hope to be able to make
a reconstruction of the harness. Mixed with the
chariot parts there were a number of miscellaneous
smaller objects, including alabaster jars, more sticks
and bows, bead sandals, baskets, and a set of four
horsehair fly-whisks, with lion-head handles of gilded
wood.

We have now made a complete tour of the Ante-

j iai

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

chamber — a fairly comprehensive one, it seemed —
and yet we find, by reference to our notes, that out
of some six or seven hundred objects which it con-
tained we have mentioned a scant hundred. Nothing
but a complete catalogue, transcribed from our
register cards, would give an adequate idea of the
extent of the discovery, and in the present volume
that is naturally out of the question. We must con-
fine ourselves here to a more or less summary descrip-
tion of the principal finds, and reserve a detailed study
of the objects for later publications. It would be
impossible, in any case, to attempt such an account
at the present moment, for there are months, possibly
years, of reconstructive work ahead of us, if the
material is to be treated as it deserves. We must
remember, too, that we have dealt so far with but
a single chamber. There are inner chambers still
untouched, and we hope to find among their contents
treasures far surpassing those with which the present
volume is concerned.

122

CHAPTER VIII
Clearing the Antechamber

C LEARING the objects from the Antechamber
was like playing a gigantic game of spillikins.
So crowded were they that it was a matter
of extreme difficulty to move one without running
serious risk of damaging others, and in some cases
they were so inextricably tangled that an elaborate
system of props and supports had to be devised to
hold one object or group of objects in place while
another was being removed ( see Plate XXVI). At such
times life was a nightmare. One was afraid to move
lest one should kick against a prop and bring the whole
thing crashing down. Nor, in many cases, could one
tell without experiment whether a particular object
was strong enough to bear its own weight. Certain
of the things were in beautiful condition, as strong
as when they first were made, but others were in a
most precarious state, and the problem constantly
arose whether it would be better to apply preserva-
tive treatment to an object in situ , or to wait until
it could be dealt with in more convenient surround-
ings in the laboratory. The latter course was
adopted whenever possible, but there were cases in
which the removal of an object without treatment
would have meant almost certain destruction.

There were sandals, for instance, of patterned
bead-work, of which the threading had entirely rotted
away. As they lay on the floor of the chamber they

133

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

looked in perfectly sound condition, but, try to pick
one up, and it crumbled at the touch, and all you
had for your pains was a handful of loose, meaning-
less beads. This was a clear case for treatment on
the spot — a spirit stove, some paraffin wax, an hour
or two to harden, and the sandal could be removed
intact, and handled with the utmost freedom. The
funerary bouquets again {see Plate XXVII) : without
treatment as they stood they would have ceased to
exist ; subjected to three or four sprayings of celluloid
solution they bore removal well, and were subsequently
packed with scarcely any injury. Occasionally, par-
ticularly with the larger objects, it was found better
to apply local treatment in the tomb, just sufficient to
ensure a safe removal to the laboratory, where more
drastic measures were possible. Each object pre-
sented a separate problem, and, as I said before,
there were cases in which only experiment could
show what the proper treatment was to be.

It was slow work, painfully slow, and nerve-
racking at that, for one felt all the time a heavy
weight of responsibility. Every excavator must, if
he have any archaeological conscience at all. The
things he finds are not his own property, to treat
as he pleases, or neglect as he chooses. They are a
direct legacy from the past to the present age, he
but the privileged intermediary through whose hands
they come ; and if, by carelessness, slackness, or
ignorance, he lessens the sum of knowledge that
might have been obtained from them, he knows him-
self to be guilty of an archaeological crime of the
first magnitude. Destruction of evidence is so pain-
fully easy, and yet so hopelessly irreparable. Tired
or pressed for time, you shirk a tedious piece of

i* 4

Clearing the Antechamber

cleaning, or do it in a half-hearted, perfunctory sort of
way, and you will perhaps have thrown away the
one chance that will ever occur of gaining some
important piece of knowledge.

Too many people — unfortunately there are so-
called archaeologists among them — are apparently
under the impression that the object bought from a
dealer’s shop is just as valuable as one which has
been found in actual excavation, and that until the
object in question has been cleaned, entered in the
books, marked with an accession number, and placed
in a tidy museum case, it is not a proper subject for
study at all. There was never a greater mistake.
Field-work is all-important, and it is a sure and
certain fact that if every excavation had been pro-
perly, systematically, and conscientiously carried
out, our knowledge of Egyptian archaeology would
be at least 50 per cent, greater than it is. There are
numberless derelict objects in the storerooms of our
museums which would give us valuable information
could they but tell us whence they came, and box
after box full of fragments which a few notes at the
time of finding would have rendered capable of
reconstruction.

Granting, then, that a heavy weight of responsi-
bility must at all times rest upon the excavator, our
own feelings on this occasion will easily be realized.
It had been our privilege to find the most important
collection of Egyptian antiquities that had ever seen
the light, and it was for us to show that we were
worthy of the trust. So many things there were that
might go wrong. Danger of theft, for instance, was
an ever-present anxiety. The whole countryside was
agog with excitement about the tomb ; all sorts of

125

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

extravagant tales were current about the gold and
jewels it contained ; and, as past experience had
shown, it was only too possible that there might be
a serious attempt to raid the tomb by night. This
possibility of robbery on a large scale was negatived,
so far as was humanly possible, by a complicated
system of guarding, there being present in The
Valley, day and night, three independent groups oi
watchmen, each answerable to a different authority
— the Government Antiquities Guards, a squad oi
soldiers supplied by the Mudir of Kena, and a
selected group of the most trustworthy of our own
staff. In addition, we had a heavy wooden grille at
the entrance to the passage, and a massive steel gate
at the inner doorway, each secured by four pad-
locked chains ; and, that there might never be any
mistake about these latter, the keys were in the
permanent charge of one particular member of the
European staff, who never parted with them for a
moment, even to lend them to a colleague. Petty
or casual theft we guarded against by doing all the
handling of the objects ourselves.

Another and perhaps an even greater cause for
anxiety was the condition of many of the objects,
It was manifest with some of them that their very
existence depended on careful manipulation and
correct preservative treatment, and there were
moments when our hearts were in our mouths.
There were other worries, too — visitors, for instance,
but I shall have quite a little to say about them
later — and I fear that by the time the Antechamber
was finished our nerves, to say nothing of our tempers,
were in an extremely ragged state. But here am I
talking about finishing before we have even begun.

Clearing the Antechamber

We must make a fresh start. It is not time to lose
our tempers yet.

Obviously, our first and greatest need was photo-
graphy. Before anything else was done, or anything
moved, we must have a series of preliminary views,
taken in panorama, to show the general appearance
of the chamber. For lighting we had available two
movable electric standards, giving 3,000 candle-
power, and it was with these that all the photo-
graphic work in the tomb was done. Exposures were
naturally rather slow, but the light was beautifully
even, much more so than would have been afforded
by flashlight — a dangerous process in such a crowded
chamber — or reflected sunlight, which were the two
possible alternatives. Fortunately for us, there was
an uninscribed and empty tomb close by — the Davis
cache tomb of Akh'en'Aten. This we got permission
from the Government to use as a dark room, and
here Burton established himself. It was not too con-
venient in some ways, but it was worth while putting
up with a little inconvenience to have a dark room
so close, for in the case of experimental exposures he
could slip across and develop without moving his
camera out of position. Moreover, these periodic
dashes of his from tomb to tomb must have been a
godsend to the crowd of curious visitors who kept
vigil above the tomb, for there were many days
during the winter in which it was the only excitement
they had.

Our next step, after these preliminary photo-
graphs had been taken, was to devise an efficient
method of registering the contents of the chamber,
for it would be absolutely essential, later on, that
we should have a ready means of ascertaining the

137

The Tomb of Tut-ankh'Amen

exact part of the tomb from which any particular
object might have come. Naturally, each object, or
closely allied group of objects, would be given its
own catalogue number, and would have that number
securely attached to it when it was moved away from
the chamber, but that was not enough, for the num-
ber might not indicate position. So far as possible,
the numbers were to follow a definite order, begin-
ning at the entrance doorway and working system-
atically round the chamber, but it was very certain
that many objects now hidden would be found in the
course of clearing, and have to be numbered out of
turn. We got over the difficulty by placing printed
numbers on every object and photographing them
in small groups. Every number showed in at least
one of the photographs, so that, by duplicating
prints, we were able to place with the notes of every
single object in our filing cabinets a print which
showed at a glance its actual position in the tomb.

So far, so good, as far as the internal work in the
tomb was concerned. Outside it, we had a still more
difficult problem to solve, that of finding adequate
working and storage space for the objects as they
were removed. Three things were absolutely essen-
tial. In the first place we must have plenty of room.
There would be boxes to unpack, notes and measure-
ments to be taken, repairs to be carried out, experi-
ments with various preservative materials to be made,
and obviously we should require considerable table
accommodation as well as ordinary storage space.
Then, secondly, we must have a place that we could
render thief-proof, for, as things were moved, the
laboratory would come to be almost as great a source
of danger as the tomb itself. Lastly, we must have

128

Clearing the Antechamber

seclusion. This may seem a less obvious need than
the others, but we foresaw, and the winter’s happen-
ings proved us to be right, that unless we were out
of sight of visitors’ ordinary haunts we should be
treated as a side-show, and should be unable to get
any work done at all. Eventually we solved the
problem by getting permission from the Government
to take over the tomb of Seti II (No. 15 in The Valley
catalogue). This certainly fulfilled the third of our
requirements. It is not a tomb ordinarily visited by
tourists, and its position, tucked away in a corner
at the extreme end of The Valley, was exactly suit-
able to our purpose. No other tomb lay beyond it,
so, without causing inconvenience to anyone, we
could close to ordinary traffic the path that led to
it, and thus secure complete privacy for ourselves.

It had other advantages, too. For one thing, it
was so well sheltered by overhanging cliffs that at
no time of day did the sun ever penetrate its doors,
thus remaining comparatively cool even in the hottest
of summer weather. There was also a considerable
amount of open space in front of it, and this we
utilized later as an open-air photographic studio and
a carpenter’s shop. We were somewhat restricted as
to space, for the tomb was so long and narrow that
all our work had to be done at the upper end of it,
the lower part being useless except for storage pur-
poses. It had also the disadvantage of being rather
a long way from the scene of operations. These, how-
ever, were but minor drawbacks compared with the
positive advantages which the tomb offered. We had
a reasonable amount of room, we had privacy, and
safety we ensured by putting up a many-padlocked
steel gate, one and a half tons in weight.

iag

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

One other point with regard to the laboratory
work the reader should bear in mind. We were five
hundred miles from anywhere, and, if we ran short
of preservative materials, there might be consider-
able delay before we could secure a fresh supply.
The Cairo shops furnished most of our needs, but
there were certain chemicals of which we exhausted
the entire Cairo stock before the winter was over,
and other things which, in the first instance, could
only be procured in England. Constant care and
forethought were therefore necessary to prevent
shortage and the consequent holding up of the work.

By December 27th all our preparations were made,
and we were ready to make a start on the actual
removal of the objects. We worked on a regular
system of division of labour. Burton came first with
his photographs of the numbered groups of objects ;
Hall and Hauser followed with their scale plan of
the chamber, every object being drawn on the plan
in projection ; Callender and I did the preliminary
noting and clearing, and superintended the removal
of the objects to the laboratory ; and there Mace and
Lucas received them, and were responsible for the
detail-noting, mending, and preservation.

The first object to be removed was the painted
wooden casket. Then, working from north to south,
and thus putting off the evil day when we should
have to tackle the complicated tangle of chariots,
we gradually disencumbered the great animal couches
of the objects which surrounded them. Each object
as it was removed was placed upon a padded wooden
stretcher and securely fastened to it with bandages.
Enormous numbers of these stretchers were required,
for, to avoid double handling, they were in almost

Clearing the Antechamber

every case left permanently with the object, and
not re-used. From time to time, when a sufficient
number of stretchers had been filled — about once a
day, on an average — a convoy was made up and
dispatched under guard to the laboratory. This was
the moment for which the crowd of watchers above
the tomb were waiting. Out came the reporters’
note-books, click, click, click went the cameras in
every direction, and a lane had to be cleared for the
procession to pass through. I suppose more films
were wasted in The Valley last winter than in any
other corresponding period of time since cameras
were first invented. We in the laboratory had occa-
sion once for a piece of old mummy cloth for experi-
mental purposes ; it was sent up to us in a stretcher,
and it was photographed eight times before it got
to us !

The removal and transport of the smaller objects
was a comparatively simple matter, but it was quite
otherwise when it came to the animal couches and
the chariots. Each of the former was constructed
in four pieces — the two animal sides, the bed proper,
and the base to which the animals’ feet were socketed*
They were manifestly much too large to negotiate
the narrow entrance passage, and must have been
brought into the tomb in sections and assembled
there. Indeed, strips of newer gold round the joints
show where the damage they had incurred in hand-
ling had been made good after deposition. It waa
obvious that to get the couches out of the tomb we
must take them apart again ; no easy matter, for
after three thousand years the bronze hooks had
naturally set tight in the staples, and would not
budge. We got them apart eventually, and with

131

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

scarcely any damage, but it took no fewer than five
of us to do it. Two supported the central part of
the couch, two were responsible for the well-being of
the animals, while the fifth, working from underneath,
eased up the hooks, one after the other, with a lever.

Even when taken apart there was none too much
room to get the side animals through the passage,
and they needed very careful handling. However,
we got them all out without accident, and packed
them straight into boxes we had in readiness for
them just outside the entrance to the tomb.

Most difficult of all to move were the chariots,
which had suffered considerably from the treatment
to which they had been subjected. It had not been
possible to get them into the tomb whole in the first
instance, for they were too wide for the entrance
passage, and the wheels had had to be removed and
the axles sawn off at one end. They had evidently
been moved out of position and turned upside down
by the plunderers, and in the subsequent tidying up
the parts had been loosely stacked one upon another.
Egyptian chariots are of very light construction, and
the rough usage which they had undergone made
these extremely difficult to handle. There was another
complication, in that the parts of the harness were
made of undressed leather. Now this, if exposed to
humidity, speedily resolves itself into glue, and that
was what had happened here — the black glutinous
mass which represented the trappings having run
down over everything and dropped, not only on the
other parts of the chariots themselves, but upon
other objects which had nothing to do with them.
Thus the leather has almost entirely perished, but,
fortunately, as I have already stated, we have for

IIIAXX a-iv'M

Clearing the Antechamber

reconstructional purposes the gold ornamentation
with which it was covered.

Seven weeks in all it took us to clear the Ante-
chamber, and thankful indeed were we when it was
finished, and that without any kind of disaster be-
falling us. One scare we had. For two or three
days the sky was very black, and it looked as though
we were in for one of the heavy storms that occa-
sionally visit Thebes. On such occasions rain comes
down in torrents, and if the storm persists for any
length of time the whole bed of The Valley becomes
a raging flood. No power on earth could have kept
our tomb from being flooded under these conditions,
but, fortunately, though there must have been heavy
rain somewhere in the district, we escaped with but
a few drops. Certain correspondents indulged in
some highly imaginative writing on the subject of
this threatened storm. As a result of this and other
distorted news we received a somewhat cryptic cable,
sent presumably by a zealous student of the occult.
It ran : “ In the case of further trouble, pour milk,
wine and honey on the threshold.” Unfortunately,
we had neither wine nor honey with us, so were
unable to carry out the directions. In spite of our
negligence, however, we escaped the further trouble.
Perhaps we were given absent treatment.

In the course of our clearing we naturally accumu-
lated a good deal of evidence with regard to the
activities of the original tomb-plunderers, and this
will be as good a place as any to give a statement
of the conclusions at which we arrived.

In the first place, we know from the sealings on
the outer doorway that all the plundering was done
within a very few years of the king’s burial. We

133

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

also know that the plunderers entered the tomb at
least twice. There were broken scattered objects
on the floor of the entrance passage and staircase,
proving that at the time of the first attempt the
passage-way between the inner and the outer sealed
doors was empty. It is, I suppose, just possible that
this preliminary plundering was done immediately
after the funeral ceremonies. Thereafter the passage
was entirely filled with stones and rubbish, and it
was through a tunnel excavated in the upper left-
hand corner of this filling that the subsequent at-
tempts were made. At this final attempt the thieves
had penetrated into all the chambers of the tomb,
but their tunnel was only a narrow one, and clearly
they could not have got away with any except the
smaller objects.

Now as to internal evidence of the damage they
had been able to effect. To begin with, there was
a strange difference between the respective states in
which the Antechamber and the Annexe had been
left. In the latter, as we have described in the
preceding chapter, everything was in confusion, and
there was not a vacant inch of floor-space. It was
quite evident that the plunderers had turned every-
thing topsy-turvy, and that the present state of the
chamber was precisely that in which they had left
it. The Antechamber was quite different. There was
a certain amount of confusion, it was true, but it
was orderly confusion, and had it not been for the
evidence of plundering afforded by the tunnel and
the re-sealed doorways, one might have imagined at
first view that there never had been any plundering,
and that the confusion was due to Oriental careless-
ness at the time of the funeral.

134

Clearing the Antechamber

However, when we commenced clearing, it quickly
became manifest that this comparative orderliness
was due to a process of hasty tidying-up, and that
the plunderers had been just as busy here as they
had in the Annexe. Parts of the same object were
found in different quarters of the chamber ; objects
that should have been in boxes were lying on the
floor or upon the couches ; on the lid of one of the
boxes there was a collar, intact but crumpled ; be-
hind the chariots, in an entirely inaccessible place,
there was a box-lid, the box to which it belonged
being far away, near the innermost door. Quite
clearly the plunderers had scattered things here just
as they had done in the Annexe, and someone had
come after them and rearranged the chamber.

Later, when we came to unpack the boxes, we
found still more circumstantial evidence. One, the
long white box at the north end of the chamber, was
half full of sticks, bows and arrows, and above,
stuffed tightly in upon them, there was a mixed
collection of the king’s under-linen. Yet the metal
points had been broken from all the arrows, and a
few were found dropped upon the floor. Other
sticks and bows that obviously belonged to this box
were likewise scattered in the chamber. In another
box there were a number of decorated robes, bundled
together and thrust in anyhow, and mixed with them
several pairs of sandals. So tightly had the contents
of the box been stuffed, that the metal toe-thong of
one of the sandals had pierced right through its own
leather sole and penetrated that of another which
lay beneath it. In still another box, jewellery and
tiny statuettes had been packed on top of faience
libation vases. Others, again, were half empty, or

i3S

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

contained a mere jumble of odds and ends of
cloth.

There was, moreover, certain evidence that this
confusion was due to hasty repacking, and had
nothing to do with the original arrangement of the
boxes, for on the lids of several there were neat little
dockets stating clearly what the contents should
have been, and in only one case did the docket bear
any sort of relation to the contents as they actually
were. This particular docket called for “ 17 (un-
known objects) of lapis lazuli colour.” Within the
box there were sixteen libation vases of dark blue
faience, and a seventeenth was on the floor of the
chamber some distance away. Eventually, in our
final study of the material these dockets will be of
great value. We shall be able, in a great many cases,
to apportion out the objects to the boxes which
originally contained them, and shall know exactly
what is missing.

The best evidence of all was supplied by a very
elaborate garment of faience, gold and inlay, com- .
prising in one piece corslet, collar and pectoral. The
largest portion of it was found in the box which
contained the faience vases just mentioned ; the
pectoral and most of the collar were tucked away
in the small gold shrine ; and isolated pieces of it
turned up in several other boxes, and were scattered
all over the floor. There is nothing at present to
show which of the boxes it originally belonged to, or
even that it actually belonged to any of them. It
is quite possible that the plunderers brought it from
the innermost chamber to the better light of the Ante-
chamber, and there deliberately pulled it to pieces.

From the facts at our disposal we can now re-

136

j

PLATE XXIX

PEDESTAL OK MISSING STATUETTE IN THE SMALL GOLDEN SHRINE.

Clearing the Antechamber

construct the whole sequence of events. A breach
was first made in the upper left-hand corner of the
first sealed door, just large enough to admit a man,
and then the tunnelling began, the excavators work-
ing in a chain, passing the stones and baskets of
earth back from one to another. Seven or eight
hours’ work might suffice to bring them to the
second sealed door; a hole in this, and they were
through. Then in the semi-darkness began a mad
scramble for loot. Gold was their natural quarry,
but it had to be in portable form, and it must have
maddened them to see it glinting all around them,
on plated objects which they could not move, and
had not time to strip. Nor, in the dim light in
which they were working, could they always distin-
guish between the real and the false, and many an
object which they took for solid gold was found on
closer examination to be but gilded wood, and was
contemptuously thrown aside. The boxes were
treated in very drastic fashion. Without exception
they were dragged out into the centre of the room
and ransacked, their contents being strewn about all
over the floor. What valuables they found in them
and made away with we may never know, but their
search can have been but hurried and superficial,
for many objects of solid gold were overlooked. One
very valuable thing we know they did secure. Within
the small gold shrine there was a pedestal of gilded
wood, made for a statuette, with the imprint of the
statuette’s feet still marked upon it (Plate XXIX).
The statuette itself was gone, and there can be very
little doubt that it was a solid gold one, probably
very similar to the gold statuette of Thothmes III,
in the image of Amen, in the Carnarvon collection.
k 137

The Tomb of Tut-arikh-Amen

Next, the Antechamber having been thoroughly
worked over, the thieves turned their attention to the
Annexe, knocking a hole in its doorway just big
enough to let them through, and overturning and
ransacking its contents quite as thoroughly as they
had done those of the outer chamber.

Then, and apparently not until then, they directed
themselves towards the burial chamber, and made a
very small hole in the sealed doorway which screened
it from the Antechamber. How much damage they
did there we shall know in due time, but, so far as
we can tell at present, it was less than in the outer
chambers. They may, indeed, have been disturbed
at this particular stage in the proceedings, and there
is a very interesting little piece of evidence that
seems to bear the theory out.

It may be remembered that in our description of
the objects in the Antechamber (Chapter VII) we
mentioned that one of the boxes contained a handful
of solid gold rings tied up in a fold of cloth. They
were just the things to attract a thief, for their
intrinsic value was considerable, and yet they could
very easily be hidden away. Now, every visitor to
Egypt will remember that if you give money to a
fellah his ordinary proceeding will be to undo a por-
tion of his head-shawl, put the coins in a fold of it,
twist it round two or three times to hold the coins
tight in place, and make it finally secure by looping
the bag thus formed into a knot. These rings had
been secured in exactly the same way — the same
loose fold in the cloth, the same twisting round to
form the bag, and the same loose knot. This, un-
questionably, was the work of one of the thieves.
It was not his head-shawl that he had used — the

*38

Clearing the Antechamber

fellah of the period wore no such garment — but one
of the king’s scarves which he had picked up in the
tomb, and he had fastened them thus for convenience
in carrying (Plate XXX). How comes it then that the
precious bundle of rings was left in the tomb, and not
carried off ? It was the very last thing that a thief
would be likely to forget, and, in case of sudden alarm,
it was not heavy enough to impede his flight, however
hurried that might be. We are almost forced to
the conclusion that the thieves were either trapped
within the tomb, or overtaken in their flight — traced,
in any case, with some of the plunder still upon them.
If this be so, it explains the presence of certain
other pieces of jewellery and gold-work too valuable
to leave and too big to overlook.

In any case, the fact that a robbery had been
committed got to the ears of the officials concerned,
and they came to the tomb to investigate and make
the damage good. For some reason they seem to
have been in almost as great a hurry as the thieves,
and their work of reparation was sadly scamped.
The Annexe they left severely alone, not even taking
the trouble to fill up the hole in the doorway. In
the Antechamber the smaller objects with which the
floor was covered were swept up, bundled together,
and jammed — there is no other word — back into the
boxes, no attempt being made to sort the material,
or to put the objects into the boxes which had been
originally intended for them. Some of the boxes
were packed tight, others were left almost empty,
and on one of the couches there were deposited two
large bundles of cloth in which a miscellaneous col-
lection of material had been wrapped. Nor even
was all the small material gathered up. The sticks,

139

The Tomb of Tut ankh-Amen

bows and arrows were left in scattered groups ; on
the lid of a box were thrown a crumpled collar of
pendants, and a pad of faience rings ; and on the
floor, one on one side of the chamber and one on
the other, there was a pair of fragile bead-work
sandals. The larger objects were pushed carelessly
back against the walls, or stacked one upon another.
Certainly no respect was shown, either to the objects
themselves, or to the king whose property they were,
and one wonders why, if they tidied up so badly,
they took the trouble to tidy up at all. One thing
we must credit them with. They did not do any
pilfering, as they might easily have done, on their
own account. We can be reasonably sure of that
from the valuable objects, small and easily concealed,
which they repacked into the boxes.

The Antechamber finished — so far, at least, as
they intended to finish it — the hole in the innermost
doorway was refilled, plastered, and stamped with
the royal necropolis seal. Then, retracing their steps,
they closed and sealed the Antechamber door, filled
up the plunderers’ tunnel through the passage-
blocking, and made good the outer doorway. What
further steps they took to prevent repetition of the
crime we do not know, but probably they buried
the whole entrance to the tomb deep out of sight.
Better political conditions in the country might have
prevented it for a time, but in the long run nothing
but ignorance of its whereabouts could have saved
it from further attempts at plundering; and very
certain it is that, between the time of this re-closing
and that of our discovery, no hand had touched the
seals upon the door.

140

CHAPTER IX
Visitors and the Press

A RCHA50L0G Y under the limelight is a new and
/% rather bewildering experience for most of us.

■*» In the past we have gone about our business
happily enough, intensely interested in it ourselves,
but not expecting other folk to be more than tepidly
polite about it, and now all of a sudden we find the
world takes an interest in us, an interest so intense
and so avid for details that special correspondents at
large salaries have to be sent to interview us, report
our every movement, and hide round corners to
surprise a secret out of us. It is, as I said, a little
bewildering for us, not to say embarrassing, and we
wonder sometimes just exactly how and why it has
all come about. We may wonder, but I think it
would puzzle anyone to give an exact answer to
the question. One must suppose that at the time
the discovery was made the general public was in a
state of profound boredom with news of reparations,
conferences and mandates, and craved for some new
topic of conversation. The idea of buried treasure,
too, is one that appeals to most of us. Whatever the
reason, or combination of reasons, it is quite certain
that, once the initial Times dispatch had been pub-
lished, no power on earth could shelter us from the
light of publicity that beat down upon us. We were
helpless, and had to make the best of it.

The embarrassing side of it was soon brought

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

home to us in no uncertain manner. Telegrams
poured in from every quarter of the globe. Within
a week or two letters began to follow them, a deluge
of correspondence that has persisted ever since.
Amazing literature some of it. Beginning with letters
of congratulation, it went on to offers of assist-
ance, ranging all the way from tomb-planning to
personal valeting ; requests for souvenirs — even a few
grains of sand from above the tomb would be re-
ceived so thankfully ; fantastic money offers, from
moving-picture rights to copyright on fashions of
dress ; advice on the preservation of antiquities, and
the best method of appeasing evil spirits and ele-
mentals ; press clippings ; tracts ; would-be facetious
communications; stern denunciations of sacrilege;
claims of relationship — surely you must be the cousin
who lived in Camberwell in 1893, and whom we have
never heard of since ; and so on and so on. Fatuous
communications of this sort came tumbling in upon
us at the rate of ten or fifteen a day right through
the winter. There is a whole sackful of them, and
an interesting psychological study they would make
if one had the time to give to them. What, for
instance, is one to make of a person who solemnly
inquires whether the discovery of the tomb throws
any light on the alleged Belgian atrocities in the
Congo ?

Next came our friends the newspaper corre-
spondents, who flocked to The Valley in large numbers
and devoted all their social gifts — and they were
considerable — towards dispelling any lingering re-
mains of loneliness or desert boredom that we mig ht
still have left to us. They certainly did their work
with some thoroughness, for each owed it to him-

M*

Plati: XXXI

VISITORS ABOVE THE TOMB

Visitors and the Press

self and to his paper to get daily information, and we
in Egypt were delighted when we heard Lord Car-
narvon’s decision to place the whole matter of
publicity in the hands of The Times.

Another, and perhaps the most serious of all the
embarrassments that notoriety brought upon us, was
the fatal attraction the tomb had for visitors. It
was not that we wanted to be secretive, or had any
objection to visitors as such — as a matter of fact,
there are few things more pleasant than showing
one’s work to appreciative people — but as the situa-
tion developed it became very clear that, unless
something was done to discourage it, we should spend
the entire season playing showmen, and never get
any work done at all. It was surely a new chapter
in the history of The Valley. Tourist visitors it had
always known, but heretofore it had been a business
proceeding and not a garden party. Armed with
guide-books, they had conscientiously visited as many
tombs as time, or their dragoman, would allow them,
bustled through their lunch, and been hurried off to
a further debauch of sight-seeing elsewhere.

This winter, dragoman and time schedules were
disregarded alike, and many of the ordinary sights
were left unvisited. The tomb drew like a magnet.
From a very early hour in the morning the pilgrimage
began. Visitors arrived on donkeys, in sand-carts,
and in two-horse cabs, and proceeded to make them-
selves at home in The Valley for the day. Round
the top of the upper level of the tomb there was a
low wall, and here they each staked out a claim and
established themselves, waiting for something to
happen. Sometimes it did, more often it did not,
but it seemed to make no difference to their patience.

M3

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

There they would sit the whole morning, reading,
talking, knitting, photographing the tomb and each
other, quite satisfied if at the end they could get a
glimpse of anything. Great was the excitement,
always, when word was passed up that something
was to be brought out of the tomb. Books and
knitting were thrown aside, and the whole battery
of cameras was cleared for action and directed at
the entrance passage. We were really alarmed some-
times lest the whole wall should give way, and a
crowd of visitors be precipitated into the mouth of
the tomb. From above, it must really have been
an imposing spectacle to see strange objects like the
great gilt animals from the couches emerging gradu-
ally from the darkness into the light of day. We
who were bringing them up were much too anxious
about their safety in the narrow passage to think
about such things ourselves, but a preliminary gasp
and then a quick buzz of exclamations brought home
to us the effect it had upon the watchers above.

To these, the casual visitors who contented them-
selves with watching from the top, there could be
no objection, and, whenever possible, we brought
things out of the tomb without covers for their
special benefit. Our real embarrassment was caused
by the numbers of people who, for one reason or
another, had to be shown over the tomb itself. This
was a difficulty 'that came upon us so gradually and
insidiously that for a long time we none of us realized
what the inevitable result must be, but in the end
it brought the work practically to a standstill. At
the beginning we had, of course, the formal inspec-
tions of the departmental officials concerned. These,
naturally, we welcomed. In the same way we were

*44

Plate XXXII

Visitors and the Press

always glad to receive other archaeologists. They had
a right to visit the tomb, and we were delighted
to show them everything there was to be seen.
So far there was no difficulty, and there never would
be any difficulty. It was with the letters of intro-
duction that the trouble began. They were written,
literally in hundreds, by our friends — we never
realized before how many we had — by our friends’
friends, by people who had a real claim upon us,
and by people who had less than none; for diplo-
matic reasons, by Ministers or departmental officials
in Cairo ; to say nothing of self- written introductions,
which either bluntly demanded admittance to the
tomb or showed quite clearly and ingeniously how
unreasonable it would be to refuse them. One in-
genious person even intercepted a telegraph boy, and
tried to make the delivery of the message an excuse
for getting in. The desire to visit the tomb became
an obsession with the tourist, and in the Luxor
hotels the question of ways and means became a
regular topic of conversation. Those who had seen
the tomb boasted of the fact openly, and to many
of those who had net it became a matter of personal
pride to effect an introduction somehow. To such
lengths were things carried that certain tourist
agencies in America actually advertised a trip to
Egypt to see the tomb.

All this, as may be imagined, put us in a very
awkward position. There were certain visitors whom
for diplomatic reasons we had to admit, and others
whom we could not refuse without giving serious
offence, not only to themselves, but to the third
parties whose introduction they brought. Where
were we to draw the line ? Obviously something had

*45

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

to be done, for, as I said, the whole of the work in
the tomb was being rapidly brought to a standstill.
Eventually we solved the difficulty by running away.
Ten days after the opening of the sealed door we
filled up the tomb, locked and barred the laboratory,
and disappeared for a week. This made a complete
break. When we resumed work the tomb itself was
irrevocably buried, and we made it a fixed rule that
no visits were to be made to the laboratory at all.

Now this whole question of visitors is a matter
of some delicacy. We have already got into a good
deal of hot water over it, and have been accused of
lack of consideration, ill manners, selfishness, boorish-
ness, and quite a number of other things ; so perhaps
it would be as well to make a clear statement of the
difficulties involved. These are two. In the first
place, the presence of a number of visitors creates
serious danger to the objects themselves, danger that
we, who are responsible for them, have no right to
Jet them undergo. How could it be otherwise ? The
tomb is small and crowded, and sooner or later — it
actually happened more than once last year — a false
step or hasty movement on the part of a visitor
will do some piece of absolutely irreparable damage.
It is not the fault of the visitor, for he does not
and cannot know the exact position or condition
of every object. It is our fault, for letting him be
there. The unfortunate part of it is that the more
interested and the more enthusiastic the visitor is,
the more likely he is to be the cause of damage :
he gets excited, and in his enthusiasm over one
object he is very liable to step back into or knock
against another. Even if no actual damage is caused,
the passage of large parties of visitors through the

146

Visitors and the Press

tomb stirs up the dust, and that in itself is bad for
the objects.

That is the first and obvious danger. The second,
due to the loss of actual working time that visitors
cause, is not so immediately apparent, but it is in
some ways even more serious. This will seem a
terribly exaggerated view to the individual visitor,
who will wonder what difference the half-hour that
he or she consumed could make to the whole season’s
work. Perfectly true, so far as that particular half-
hour is concerned, but what of the other nine visitors,
or groups of visitors, who come on the same day ?
By strict arithmetic he and they have occupied five
hours of our working day ; in actual fact, it is con-
siderably more than five, for in the short intervals
between visitors it is impossible to settle down to
any serious piece of work. To all intents and pur-
poses a complete day has been lost. Now, there were
many days last season in which we actually did
have ten parties of visitors, and if we had given
way to every demand, and avoided any possibility
of giving offence, there would not have been a day
in which we did not far exceed the ten. In other
words, there would have been whole weeks at a
time in which no work was done at all. As it actually
worked out last winter, we gave visitors a quarter
of our working season. This resulted in our having
to prolong our work into the hot weather a whole
month longer than we had intended, and the heat
of The Valley in May is not a thing to look forward
to with equanimity, and is anything but inducive to
good work.

There was much more at stake, however, than
our own personal inconvenience : there was actual

>47

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

danger for the objects themselves. Delicate anti-
quities are extremely sensitive to any change of
temperature, and have to be watched most carefully.
In the present case the change from the close atmo-
sphere of the Antechamber to the variable tempera-
ture outside, and the dry airiness of the tomb we
used as a laboratory, was a very appreciable one,
and certain of the objects were affected by it. It
was extremely important that preservatives should
be applied at the very first possible moment, and
in some cases there was need of experimental treat-
ment which had to be watched very carefully. The
danger of constant interruption is obvious, and I
need not labour the point. What would a chemist
think if you asked him to break off a delicate experi-
ment to show you round his laboratory ? What
would be the feelings of a surgeon if you interrupted
him in the middle of an operation ? And what about
the patient ? For the matter of that, what would
a business man say — what wouldn’t he say ? — if he
had a succession of ten parties of visitors in the
course of the morning, each expecting to be shown
all over the office ?

Yet, surely, the claims of archaeology for consider-
ation are just as great as those of any other form
of scientific research, or even — dare I say it ? — of
that of the sacred science of money-making itself.
Why, because we carry on our work in unfrequented
regions instead of in a crowded city, are we to be
considered churlish for objecting to constant inter-
ruptions ? I suppose the reason really is that in
popular opinion archaeology is not work at all. Ex-
cavation is a sort of super-tourist amusement, carried
out with the excavator's own money if he is rich

*48

Visitors and the Press

enough, or with other people’s money if he can per-
suade them to subscribe it, and all he has to do is
to enjoy life in a beautiful winter climate and pay
a gang of natives to find things for him. It is the
dilettante archaeologist, the man who rarely does any
work with his own hands, but as often as not is
absent when the actual discovery is made, who is
largely responsible for this opinion. The serious
excavator’s life is frequently monotonous and, as I
hope to show in the next chapter, quite as hard-
working as that of any other member of society.

I have written more than I intended on this sub-
ject, but really it is a very serious matter for us.
We have an opportunity in this tomb such as no
archeologists ever had before, but if we are to take
full advantage of it — and failure to do so will earn
for us the just execration of every future generation
of archeologists — it is absolutely essential that we be
left to carry on the work without interruption. It
is not as if our visitors were all keen on archeology,
or even mildly interested in it. Too many of them
are attracted by mere curiosity, or, even worse, by
a desire to visit the tomb because it is the thing
to do. They want to be able to talk at large about
it to their friends at home, or crow over less fortunate
tourists who have not managed to secure an intro-
duction themselves. Can you imagine anything more
maddening, when you are completely absorbed in a
difficult problem, than to give up half an hour of
your precious time to a visitor who has pulled every
conceivable kind of wire to gain admittance, and
then to hear him say quite audibly as he goes away :
“ Well, there wasn’t much to see, after all ” ? That
actually happened last winter — and more than once.

149

The Tomb of Tutankh-Amen

In the coming season there will in any case be
much less for visitors to see. It will be absolutely
impossible to get into the burial chamber, for every
available inch of space will be occupied by scaffold-
ing, and the removal of the shrine, section by section,
will be much too ticklish an operation to admit of
interruptions. In the laboratory we propose to deal
with only one object at a time, which will be packed
and got rid of as soon as we have finished with it.
Six cases of objects from the tomb are already on
exhibition in the Cairo Museum, and we would
earnestly beg visitors to Egypt to content them-
selves with these, and with what they can see from
the outside of the tomb, and not to set their hearts
on getting into the tomb itself. Those who are
genuinely interested in archaeology for its ow r n sake
will be the first to realize that the request is a reason-
able one. The others, the idly curious, who look
on the tomb as a side-show, and Tut ankh-Amen as
a mere topic of conversation, have no rights in the
matter, and need no consideration. Whatever our
discoveries next season may be, we trust that we
may be allowed to deal with them in a proper and
dignified manner.

«5o

CHAPTER X
Work in the Laboratory

T HIS chapter is dedicated to those — and they
are many — who think that an excavator spends
his time basking in the sun, pleasantly ex-
hilarated by watching other people work for him,
and otherwise relieved from boredom by having
baskets full of beautiful antiquities brought up from
the bowels of the earth from time to time for him
to look at. His actual life is very different, and, as
there can be but few who know the details of it,
it will be worth our while to give a general outline
here before going into the question of the laboratory
work of the past season. Incidentally, it will help
to explain why this careful laboratory work was
necessary.

In the first place, it must be clearly understood
that there is never any question of having basket-
fuls of objects brought to the excavator for him
to look at ; the first and most important rule in
excavating is that the archaeologist must remove
every antiquity from the ground with his own
hands. So much depends upon it. Quite apart
from the question of possible damage that might
be caused by clumsy fingers, it is very essential that
you see the object in situ, to gain any evidence
you can from the position in which it lies, and the
relationship it bears to objects near it. For example,
there may very likely be dating evidence. How many

151

The Tomb of TuVankhAmen

pieces there are in museums with vague “probably
Middle Kingdom ” kind of labels, which, by refer-
ence to the objects with which they were found,
might easily have been assigned accurately to the
Dynasty to which they belonged, or even to the
reign of some particular king. There will, again, be
evidence of arrangement to be secured, evidence that
may show the use for which some particular object
was made, or give the details for its ultimate
reconstruction.

Take, for instance, the tiny fragments of serrated
flint which are found in such enormous quantities
in town sites of the Middle Kingdom. We can guess
their use, and with the label “ sickle flints ” they
make not uninteresting museum material. Now find,
as I have done, a complete sickle lying in the ground,
its wooden parts in such condition that a touch will
destroy the evidence of its ever having been a sickle
at all. Two courses are open to you. By careful
handling and the use of preservatives you may be
able to get your sickle out of the ground intact,
or, if it is too far gone for that, you can at least
take the measurements and notes that will enable
you to construct the wood anew. In either case
you get a complete museum object, worth, archaeo-
logically, a thousand times more than the handful
of disconnected pieces of flint that you would other-
wise have secured. This is a simple illustration of
the importance of field evidence : we shall have
other and more striking instances to record when
we come to deal with the different classes of material.

One other matter before we pass on. By noting
the exact position of an object, or group of objects,
you can not infrequently secure evidence that will

15a

Work in the Laboratory

enable you to make a find of similar objects else-
where. Foundation deposits are a case in point. In
every construction the arrangement of the deposits
followed a regular system, and, having found one,
it is a simple matter to put your finger upon the
others.

An excavator, then, must see every object in
position, must make careful notes before it is moved,
and, if necessary, must apply preservative treatment
on the spot. Obviously, under these conditions it
is all-important for you to keep in close touch with
your excavations. Holiday trips and days off are
out of the question. While the work is actually
running you must be on the spot all day, and avail-
able at all hours of the day. Your workmen must
know where to find you at any given moment, and
must have a perfectly clear understanding that the
news of a discovery must be passed on to you
without any delay.

In the case of an important discovery you will
probably know something has happened before you
actually get the report, for — in Egypt particularly —
the news will have spread almost instantaneously,
and have had a curious psychological effect upon
your entire gang of workmen. They will be working
differently, not necessarily harder, but differently,
and much more silently. The ordinary work-songs
will have ceased. A smaller discovery you will
frequently sense in advance from the behaviour of
the man who brings the message. Nothing would
induce him to come straight to you and tell you
openly what he has found. At all costs he must
make a mystery of it, so he hovers about in a
thoroughly self-conscious manner, thereby adver-

l 153

The Tomb of Tutankh-Amen

fcising to the world at large exactly what has hap-
pened, and eventually makes himself still more con-
spicuous by beckoning you aside and whispering his
news. Even then it will be difficult to get any but
the vaguest of reports out of him, and it will prob-
ably not be until you have reached the actual spot
that you find out exactly what has been found.
This is due largely to an Egyptian’s love of mystery
for its own sake. The same man will tell his friends
all about the find on the first opportunity, but it
is part of the game to pretend that they must know
nothing about it at the time. Partly, too, to excite-
ment. Not that he takes any real interest in the
objects themselves, but because he looks on them
in the light of a gamble. Most excavators work on
what is known as the baksheesh system : that is
to say, they pay their workmen rewards, over and
above their wages, for anything they find. It is not
an ideal arrangement, but it has two advantages :
it helps to ensure the safety of the objects, par-
ticularly the small, easily concealed ones, which may
be most valuable to you for dating purposes ; and
it makes the men keener about their work, and
more careful about the manner in which they carry
it out, the reward being more for the safe handling
than for the value of the object.

For these, and for many other reasons which we
could mention, it is all-important for you to keep
close to your work, and, even if nothing is being
found at the moment, you will not have much time
to be idle. To begin with, every tomb, every build-
ing, every broken Avail even, must be noted, and if
you are dealing with pit-tombs this may involve
considerable gymnastic exercise. The pits may range

*54

Work in the Laboratory

anywhere from ten to a hundred and twenty feet
in depth, and I calculated once that in the course
of a single season I had climbed, hand over hand,
up half a mile of rope. Then there is photography.
Every object of any archaeological value must be
photographed before it is moved, and in many cases
a series of exposures must be made to mark the
various stages in the clearing. Many of these photo-
graphs will never be used, but you can never tell
but that some question may arise, whereby a seem-
ingly useless negative may become a record of
the utmost value. Photography is absolutely essen-
tial on every side, and it is perhaps the most exacting
of all the duties that an excavator has to face. On
a particular piece of work I have taken and developed
as many as fifty negatives in a single day.

Whenever possible, these particular branches of
the work — surveying and photography — should be in
the hands of separate experts. The man in charge
will then have time to devote himself to what we
may call the finer points of excavation. He will
be able to play with his work, as a brother digger
expressed it. In every excavation puzzles and prob-
lems constantly present themselves, and it is only
by going constantly over the ground, looking at it
from every point of view, and scrutinizing it in every
kind of light, that you will be able to arrive at a
solution of some of these problems. The meaning
of a complex of walls, the evidence of reconstruction
of a building, or of a change in plan on the part of
the original architect, the significance of a change
of level, where the remains of a later period have
been superimposed upon those of an earlier one, the
purport of some peculiarity in the surface debris,

i55

The Tomb of Tut ankh-Amen

or in the stratification of a mound — these and a
score of others are the questions that an excavator
has to face, and it is upon his ability to answer
them that he will stand or fall as an archaeologist.

Then, again, if he is freed from the labour of
survey and photography, he will be able to devote
more time and thought to the general organization
of the work, and by that means to effect considerable
economies both in time and money. Many a hun-
dred pounds has been wasted by lack of system, and
many an excavator has had to clear away his own
dumps because he failed in the first instance to
exercise a little forethought. The question of the
distribution of the workmen is one that needs careful
attention, and great wastage of labour can be avoided
by moving men around from one place to another
exactly when and where they are wanted, and never
leaving more on a particular section of the work
than are actually needed to keep it running smoothly.
The number of labourers that an excavator can keep
up with single-handed will depend naturally on the
conditions of the work. On a big and more or less
unproductive undertaking, such as pyramid clearing,
he can look after an almost indefinite number. On
rock-cut tombs he can perhaps keep pace with fifty ;
whereas on shallow graves — a pre-dynastic cemetery,
for example — ten will keep him uncomfortably busy.
The number of men who can be employed is also
largely dependent on the type of site and formation
of the locality of the excavation.

So much for the outdoor duties, the actual con-
duct of his excavations. There are plenty of other
jobs to be done, and his off hours and evenings will
be very fully occupied if he is to keep on terms

*56

Work in the Laboratory

with his work. His notes, his running plans, and the
registration of the objects must be kept thoroughly
up to date. There are the photographs to be
developed, prints to be made, and a register kept,
both of negatives and prints. There will be broken
objects to be mended, objects in delicate condition
to be treated, restorations to be considered, and
bead- work to be re-threaded. Then comes the
indoor photography, for each individual object must
be photographed to scale, and in some cases from
several points of view. The list could be extended
almost indefinitely, and would include a number of
jobs that would seem to have but a remote con-
nexion with archaeology, such as account-keeping,
doctoring the men, and settling their disputes. The
workmen naturally have one day a week off, and
the excavator will very likely begin the season with
the idea that he too will take a weekly holiday.
He will usually be obliged to abandon the idea after
the first week, for he will find in this off day too
good an opportunity to waste of catching up with
the hundred and one jobs that have got ahead of
him.

Such, in broad outline, is the life of the excavator.
There are certain details of his work, more particu-
larly those which have to do with note-taking and
first-aid preservation of the different classes of
objects, which we should like to dwell on at some-
what greater length. These are subjects which the
ordinary reader will probably know little about, and
they will be well illustrated in our description of the
laboratory work of the past season.

Woodwork, for instance, is seldom in good con-
dition and presents many problems. Damp and the

*57

The Tomh of Tut-ankh'Atnen

white ant are its chief foes, and in unfavourable
conditions nothing will be left of the wood but a
heap of black dust, or a shell which crumbles at the
touch. In the one case an entry in your notes to
the effect that wood has been present is the most
that you can do, but in the other there will generally
be a certain amount of information to be gleaned.
Measurements can certainly be secured ; and the
painted remains of an inscription, which may give
you the name of the owner of the object, and which
a single breath of wind or touch of the surface would
be sufficient to efface, can be copied, if taken in hand
without delay. Again, there will be cases in which
the wooden frame or core of an object has decayed
away, leaving scattered remains of the decoration
— ivory, gold, faience, or what not — which originally
covered its surface. By careful notes of the exact
relative positions of this fallen decoration, supple-
mented by a subsequent fitting and piecing together,
it will often be possible to w r ork out the exact size
and shape of the object. Then, by applying the
original decoration to a new wooden core, you will
have, instead of a miscellaneous collection of ivory,
gold and faience fragments, useless for any purpose,
an object which for all practical purposes is as good
as new. Preservation of wood, unless it be in the
very last stage of decay, is always possible by applica-
tion of melted paraffin wax ; by this means an object,
which otherwise would have fallen to pieces, can be
rendered perfectly solid and fit to handle.

The condition of wood naturally varies according
to the site, and, fortunately for us, Luxor is in this
respect perhaps the most favourable site in the whole
of Egypt. We had trouble with the wood from the

158

Work in the Laboratory

present tomb, but it arose, not from the condition
in which we originally found it, but from subsequent
shrinkage owing to change of atmosphere. This in
an object of plain wood is not such a serious matter,
but the Egyptians were extremely fond of applying
a thin layer of gesso, on which prepared surface they
painted scenes or made use of an overlay of gold
foil. Naturally, as the wood shrank the gesso cover-
ing began to loosen up and buckle, and there was
considerable danger that large parts of the surface
might be lost. The problem is a difficult one. It is
a perfectly easy matter to fix paint or gold foil to
the gesso, but ordinary preservatives will not fix
gesso to the wood. Here again, as we shall show,
we had recourse eventually to paraffin wax.

The condition of textiles varies. Cloth in some
cases is so strong that it might have come fresh
from the loom, whereas in others it has been reduced
by damp almost to the consistency of soot. In the
present tomb the difficulty of handling it was con-
siderably increased, both by the rough usage to
which it had been subjected, and by the fact that
so many of the garments were covered with a
decoration of gold rosettes and bead-work.

Bead-work is in itself a complicated problem, and
will perhaps tax an excavator’s patience more than
any other material with which he has to deal. There
is so much of it. The Egyptians were passionately
fond of beads, and it is by no means exceptional to
find upon a single mummy an equipment consisting
of a number of necklaces, two or three collars, a
girdle or two, and a full set of bracelets and anklets.
In such a case many thousands of beads will have
been employed. Therein lies the test of patience,

*59

The Tomb of Tut'ankh'Amen

for in the recovery and restoration of this bead-
work every single bead will have to be handled at
least twice. Very careful work will be necessary to
secure the original arrangement of the beads. The
threads that held them together will all have rotted
away, but nevertheless they will be lying for the
most part in their correct relative positions, and by
carefully blowing away the dust it may be possible
to follow the whole length of necklace or collar, and
secure the exact order of the beads. Re- threading
may be done in situ as each section is laid bare —
on a many-stringed girdle I once had twelve needles
and thread going simultaneously — or, better still, the
beads may be transferred one by one to a piece of
cardboard on which a thin layer of plasticine has
been spread. This has the advantage that gaps of
the required length can be left for missing or doubt-
fully placed beads.

In very elaborate objects, where it is not possible
to thread the beads as they are found, careful notes
must be made, the re-stringing being done later, not
in exact order, bead for bead, but in accordance
with the original pattern and design. A tedious
business this re-stringing will be, and a good deal
of experimental work Hill probably be necessary
before you arrive at the correct method of dealing
with the particular problem. In a collar, for example,
it may be necessary to have three independent thread-
ing strings to every bead, if the rows are to lie
smoothly in place. Restoration .of missing or broken
parts will sometimes be necessary if a reconstruction
is to be effected. I once found a set of bracelets
and anklets in which the rows of beads had been
separated by perforated bars of wood covered with

ifc>

Work in the Laboratory

gold foil. The wood of which these separators was
composed had entirely gone, leaving the gold foil
shells ; so I cut new pieces of wood to the shape,
burnt out perforation holes with a red-hot needle,
and covered the new bars with the original gold.
Such restorations, based on actual evidence, are
perfectly legitimate, and well worth the trouble.
You will have secured for your museum, in place
of a trayful of meaningless beads, or, worse still, a
purely arbitrary and fanciful reconstruction, an
object, attractive in itself, which has very consider-
able archaeological value.

• Papyrus is frequently difficult to handle, and in
its treatment more crimes have been committed than
in any other branch of archaeology. If in fairly sound
* condition it should be wrapped in a damp cloth for
a few hours, and then it can easily be straightened
out under glass. Rolls that are tom and brittle,
sure to separate into a number of small pieces
during the process of unwrapping, should never be
tackled unless you have plenty of time and space
at your disposal. Careful and systematic work will
ensure the correct spacing of almost all the frag-
ments, whereas a desultory sorting, carried out in
the intervals of other work, and perhaps by various
hands, will never achieve a satisfactory result, and
may end in the destruction of much valuable evi-
dence. If only the Turin papyrus, for instance, had
received careful treatment when it was first found,
what a wealth of information it would have given
us, and what heart-burnings we should have been
saved 1

Stone, as a rule, presents few difficulties in the
field. Limestone will certainly contain salt, which

161

The Tomb of Tut ankh'Amen

must be soaked out of it, but this is a problem that
can be taken in hand later in the museum, and need
not detain us here. In the same way faience, pottery,
and metal objects can usually be left for later treat-
ment. We are only concerned here with work that
must be carried out on the spot.

Detailed and copious notes should be taken at
every stage of this preliminary work. It is difficult
to take too many, for, though a thing may be per-
fectly clear to you at the moment, it by no means
follows that it will be when the time comes for you
to work over your material. In tomb-work as many
notes as possible should be made while everything
is still in position. Then, when you begin clearing,
card and pencil should be kept handy, and every
fresh item of evidence should be noted immediately
you run across it. You are tempted so often to put
off making the note until you have finished the
actual piece of work on which you are engaged, but
it is dangerous. Something will intervene, and as
likely as not that particular note will never be made
at all.

Now let us move to the laboratory, and put into
practice some of the theories that we have been
elaborating. It will be remembered that it was the
tomb of Seti II (No. 15 in the Wilkinson catalogue
of tomb numbers) that had been selected for us, and
here we had established ourselves with our note-cards
and our preservatives. The tomb was long and
narrow, so that only the first bay could be used
for practical work, the inner darker part being
serviceab'e merely as storage space. As the objects
were brought in they were deposited, still in their
stretchers, in the middle section, and covered up

162

Work in the Laboratory

until they should be wanted. Each in turn was
brought up to the working bay for examination.
There, after the surface dust had been cleared off,
measurements, complete archaeological notes, and
copies of inscriptions were entered on the filing
cards. The necessary mending and preservative
treatment followed, after which it was taken just
outside the entrance for scale photographs to be
made. Finally, having passed through all these
stages, the object was stored away in the innermost
recesses of the tomb to await the final packing.

In the majority of cases no attempt at final
treatment was made. It was manifestly impossible,
for months, probably years, of reconstructive work
are necessary if full use is to be made of the material.
All we could do here was to apply preliminary treat-
ment, sufficient in any event to enable the object
to support a journey in safety. Final restorations
must be made in the museum, and they will need
a far more fully equipped laboratory and a much
larger staff of skilled helpers than we could ever
hope to achieve in The Valley.

As the season advanced, and the laboratory grew
more and more crowded, it became increasingly diffi-
cult to keep track of the work, and it was only by
close attention to detail, and strict adherence to a
very definite order of procedure, that we managed
to keep clear of complications. As each object
arrived its registration number was noted in an
entry book, and in the same book a record was
kept of the successive stages of its treatment. Each
of the primary objects had been given its own
registration number in the tomb, but as these were
worked over in the laboratory an elaborate system

163

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

of sub-numbering became necessary. A box, for
instance, might contain fifty objects, any one of
which must be clearly identifiable at all times, and
these we distinguished by letters of the alphabet,
or, where necessary, by a combination of letters.
Constant care was necessary to keep these smaller
objects from being separated from their identifica-
tion tickets, especially in cases where protracted
treatment was required. Not infrequently it hap-
pened that the component parts of a single object,
scattered in the tomb, were entered under two or
more numbers, and in this case cross-references in
the notes were necessary. Note-cards, as completed,
were filed away in cabinets, and in these filing
cabinets we had, by the end of the season, a complete
history of every object from the tomb, including : —

(1) Measurements, scale drawings, and archaeo-

logical notes.

(2) Notes on the inscriptions by Dr. Alan

Gardiner.

(3) Notes by Mr. Lucas on the preservative

treatment employed.

(4) A photograph, showing the position of the

object in the tomb.

(5) A scale photograph, or scries of photographs,

of the object itself.

(6) In the case of boxes, a series of views, show-

ing the different stages in the clearing.

So much for our system of work. Let us turn
now to the individual treatment of a selected number
of the antiquities. The first that required treat-
ment in the laboratory was the wonderful painted
casket (No. 21 in our register), and, if we had searched

164

PATNTFXI CXSWVT Nn 91

Work in the Laboratory

the whole tomb through, we should have been hard
put to it to find a single object that presented a
greater number of problems. For this reason it
will be worth our while to give a detailed description
of its treatment. Our first care was for the casket
itself, which was coated with gesso, and covered
from top to bottom with brilliantly painted scenes.
With the exception of a slight widening of the joints
owing to shrinkage, the wood was in perfect con-
dition ; the gesso had chipped a little at the corners
and along the cracks, but was still in a reasonably
firm state, and the paint, though a little discoloured
in places, was perfectly fast and showed no signs
of rubbing. It seemed as though but little treat-
ment was necessary. The surface dust was removed,
the discoloration of the painted surfaces was reduced
with benzine, and the whole exterior of the casket
was sprayed with a solution of celluloid in amyl-
acetate to fix the gesso to the wood, particular atten-
tion being paid to tender places at the cracks. At
the moment this seemed to be all that was required,
but it was our first experience of the wood and gesso
combination from the tomb, and we were to be dis-
illusioned. Three or four weeks later we noticed
that the joint cracks were getting wider, and that
the gesso in other places was showing a tendency
to buckle. It was clear enough what was happen-
ing. Owing to the change of temperature from the
close, humid atmosphere of the tomb to the dry
airiness of the laboratory, the wood had begun to
shrink once more, and the gesso, not being able to
follow it, was coming away from the wood alto-
gether. The position was serious, for we were in
danger of losing large parts of the painted surface.

165

The Tomb of Tut-ankh*Amen

Drastic measures were necessary, and after much
discussion we decided on the use of melted paraffin
wax. Courage was needed to take the step, but we
were thoroughly justified by the result, for the wax
penetrated the materials and held everything firm,
and, so far from the colours being affected, as we
had feared, it seemed to make them more brilliant
than before. We used this process later on a number
of other objects of wood and gesso, and found it
extremely satisfactory. It is important that the
surface should be heated, and that the wax should
be brought as near to boiling-point as possible ;
otherwise it will chill and refuse to penetrate. Fail-
ing an oven we found the Egyptian sun quite hot
enough for the purpose. Surplus wax can be removed
by the application of heat, or by the use of ben-
zine. There is another advantage in the process,
in that blisters in the gesso can be pressed down
into place again while the wax is still warm, and
will hold quite firmly. In very bad cases it may
be necessary to fill the blister in from behind by
means of hot wax applied by a pipette.

So much for the outside of the casket. Now let
us remove the lid and see what the inside has in
store for us. This is an exciting moment, for there
are beautiful things everywhere, and, thanks to the
hurried re-packing carried out by the officials, there
is nothing to forewarn one as to what the contents
of any individual box may be. In this particular case,
by reference to the four views on Plates XXXIV and
XXXV, the reader can himself follow the successive
stages in the clearing, and it will give him some idea
of the difficulty of handling the material if I explain
that it took me three weeks of hard work to get

166

Plate XXXV

Work in the Laboratory

to the bottom of the box. The first photograph
was taken immediately after the lid had been re-
moved, and before anything was touched. On the
right there is a pair of rush and papyrus sandals,
in perfect condition ; below them, just showing, a
gilt head-rest, and, lower again, a confused mass of
cloth, leather, and gold, of which we can make
nothing as yet. On the left, crumpled into a bundle,
there is a magnificent royal robe, and in the upper
corner there are roughly shaped beads of dark resin.
The robe it was that presented us with our first
problem, a problem that was constantly to recur —
how best to handle cloth that crumbled at the
touch, and yet was covered with elaborate and heavy
decoration. In this particular case the whole sur-
face of the robe is covered with a network of
faience beads, with a gold sequin filling in every
alternate square in the net. These — beads and
sequins — had originally been sewn to the cloth, but
are now loose. A great many of them are upside
down, the releasing of the tension when the thread
snapped having evidently caused them to spring. At
the borders of the robe — they are underneath, and
do not show in the photograph — there are bands of
tiny glass beads of various colours, arranged in
patterns. The upper layer of cloth was very decep-
tive in appearance. It looked reasonably solid, but
if one tried to lift it, it fell to pieces in one’s hand
Below, where it had been in contact with other
things, the condition was much worse.

This question of cloth and its treatment was
enormously complicated for us in the present tomb
by the rough usage to which it had been subjected.
Had it been spread out flat, or neatly folded, it

167

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

would have been a comparatively simple matter to
deal with it. We should, as a matter of fact, have
had an easier task if it had been allowed to remain
strewn about the floor of the chamber, as the
plunderers had left it. Nothing could have been
worse for our purposes than the treatment it had
undergone in the tidying-up process, in which the
various garments had been crushed, bundled and
interfolded, and packed tightly into boxes with a
mixture of other and, in some cases, most incon-
gruous objects.

In the case of this present robe it would have
been perfectly simple to solidify the whole of the
upper layer and remove it in one piece, but this
was a process to which there were serious objec-
tions. It involved, firstly, a certain amount of danger
to whatever might lie beneath, for in the unpacking
of these boxes we had to be continually on our
guard lest, in our enthusiasm over the treatment
or removal of an object, we might inflict damage
on a still more valuable one which lay under it.
Then, again, if we made the upper part of the robe
solid, we should seriously have reduced the chances
of extracting evidence as to size and shape, to say
nothing of the details of ornamentation. In dealing
with all these robes there were two alternatives
before us. Something had to be sacrificed, and we
had to make up our minds whether it should be the
cloth or the decoration. It would have been quite
possible, by the use of preservatives, to secure large
pieces of the cloth, but, in the process, we should
inevitably have disarranged and damaged the bead
ornamentation that lay below. On the other hand,
by sacrificing the cloth, picking it carefully away

1 68

(a) The buckle of sandal (b) in elaborate gold work.

(b) The sandal, with toe-tliong
of open-work gold.

(c) The slipper of leather, with
elaborate decoration of gold.

Plate XXXVI

rrur VI KCJS rolTRT SANDAL AND SLIPPER.

Work in the Laboratory

piece by piece, we could recover; as a rule, the whole
scheme of decoration. This was the plan we usually
adopted. Later, in the museum, it will be possible
to make a new garment of the exact size, to which
the original ornamentation — bead-work, gold sequins,
or whatever it may be — can be applied. Restorations
of this kind will be far more useful, and have a
much greater archaeological value, than a few irregu-
larly shaped pieces of preserved cloth and a collection
of loose beads and sequins.

The size of the robe from this casket can be
worked out with reasonable accuracy from the orna-
mentation. At the lower hem there was a band,
composed of tiny beads arranged in a pattern, a
pattern of which we were able to secure the exact
details. From this band there hung, at equal inter-
vals, a series of bead strings with a large pendant
at the end of each string. We can thus calculate
the circumference of the hem by multiplying the
space between the strings by the number of pendants.
That gives us the width of the robe. Now we can
calculate the total area of decoration from the num-
ber of gold sequins employed, and, if we divide this
total area by our known circumference at the bottom,
we shall arrive at a fairly accurate approximation
of the height. This naturally presupposes that our
robe is the same width throughout, a method of
cutting borne out by a number of undecorated
garments of which we were able to secure the exact
measurements.

This has been a long digression, but it was neces-
sary, to show the nature of the problem with which
we had to deal. We can return to the casket now,
and really begin to explore its contents. First of

m 169

The Tomb of TuPankh-Amen

all we removed the rush sandals, which were in beau-
tifully firm condition, and presented no difficulties
(Plate XXXIV, b). Next came the gilt head-rest, and
then, very carefully, we removed the robe. One
large portion of its upper surface we managed to
take out whole by the aid of a celluloid solution,
and short lengths of the band decorations of small
beads we preserved in wax for future reference. The
third photograph (Plate XXXV, c) shows what we may
call the second layer of the casket’s contents. Here, to
begin with, were three pairs of sandals, or rather, to be
accurate, two pairs of sandals and a pair of loose slip-
pers. These were of leather, elaborately decorated
with gold, and of wonderful workmanship (two of them
are shown on Plate XXXVI). Unfortunately, their
condition left much to be desired. They had suffered
from their packing in the first place, but, worse than
that, some of the leather had melted and run, gluing
the sandals together and fastening them to other
objects, making their extraction from the box a
matter of extreme difficulty. So much of the leather
had perished that the question of restoration became
a serious problem. We secured the gold ornamenta-
tion that still remained in place with a solution of
Canada balsam, and strengthened them generally as
far as we could, but eventually it will probably be
better to make new sandals and apply the old
decoration to them.

Beneath the sandals there was a mass of decayed
cloth, much of it of the consistency of soot, thickly
spangled throughout with rosettes and sequins of
gold and silver. This, sad to relate, represents a
number of royal robes. The difficulty of trying to
extract any intelligible record from it can be imag-

170

IIAXXX

Work in the Laboratory

ined, but a certain amount of assistance was given
by the differences in the sizes and shapes of the
sequins. There were at least seven distinct gar-
ments. One was an imitation leopard-skin cloak in
cloth, with gilt head, and spots and claws of silver
(see last photograph of the series, Plate XXXV, d) ;
while two of the others were head-dresses, made in
the semblance of hawks with outstretched wings, of
the type shown in Plate LXXVIII. Bundled in
with the actual garments there were a number of
other objects — two faience collarettes of beads and
pendants, two caps or bags of tiny bead-work which
had almost entirely fallen to pieces, a wooden tag
inscribed in hieratic “ Papyrus (?) sandals of His
Majesty,” a glove of plain linen, an archer’s gauntlet,
tapestry woven in coloured thread, a double necklace
of large flat faience beads ( see Plate XXXV, d), and
a number of linen belts or scarves. Below the gar-
ments there was a layer of rolls and pads of cloth,
some of which were loin-cloths and others mere
bandages ; and below these again, resting on the
bottom of the box, there were two boards, perforated
at one end for hanging, whose purpose is still doubtful.

With very few exceptions — the rush sandals are
a case in point — the garments it contained were
those of a child. Our first idea was that the king
might have kept stored away the clothes he wore
as a boy ; but later, on one of the belts, and on
the sequins of one of the robes, we found the royal
cartouche. He must, then, have worn them after he
became king, from which it would seem to follow
that he was quite a young boy when he succeeded
to the throne. Another interesting piece of evidence
in this connexion is supplied by the fact that on

* 7 *

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

the lid of one of the other boxes there is a docket
which reads, “ The King’s side-lock (?) as a boy.”
The question raises an interesting historical point,
and we shall be eager to see, when the time comes,
the evidence of age that the mummy will supply.
Certainly, whenever the king appears upon the tomb
furniture, he is represented as little more than a
youth.

One other point with regard to the robes found
in this and other boxes. Many of them are decorated
with patterns in coloured linen threads. Some of
these are examples of tapestry weaving, similar to
the fragments found in the tomb of Thothmes IV , 1
but there were also undoubted cases of applied
needlework. The material from this tomb will be of
extreme importance to the history of textile art,
and it needs very careful study.

We shall not have space here to describe the
unpacking of the other boxes, but all were in the
same jumbled state, and all had the same queer
mixture of incongruous objects. Many of them con-
tained from fifty to sixty individual pieces, each re-
quiring its own registration card, and there was never
any lack of excitement in the unpacking, for you
never knew when you might not happen upon a
magnificent gold scarab, a statuette, or a beautiful
piece of jewellery. It was slow work, naturally, for
hours at a time had to be spent working out with
brush and bellows the exact order and arrangement
of collar, necklace, or gold decoration, covered, as
they ordinarily were, with the dust of decayed
cloth. The collars were a frequent source of trouble.

1 Carter and Newberry, Tomb of Thouimosi* IV, Pis. I and XXVIII.
Nos. 46526-46529.

J72

a!

Plate XXXVIII

RECONSTRUCTION OF CORSLET.

Work in the Laboratory

We found eight in all, of the Tell el Amama leaf
and flower type, and it needed great care and patience
to work out the exact arrangement of the different
types of pendants. One of these is shown on Plate
XXXIX, laid out loosely on ground glass to be
photographed. They still need quite a lot of treat-
ment to bring them back to their original colours,
and there will have to be a certain amount of restora-
tion of the broken and missing parts before they
are ready for the final re-stringing. In one case
we were lucky, for an elaborate three-string neck-
lace, with a gilt pectoral at one end and a scarab-
pendant at the other, lay flat upon the bottom of
a box, so that we were able to remove it bead by
bead, and re-string it on the spot in its exact original
order (Plate XL).

The most elaborate piece of reconstruction that
we had to do was in connexion with the corslet,
which has been referred to more than once. This
was a very elaborate affair, consisting of four separ-
ate parts — the corslet proper, inlaid with gold and
carnelian, with border bands and braces of gold
and coloured inlay ; a collar with conventional
imitation of beads in gold, carnelian, and green and
blue faience ; and two magnificent pectorals of open-
work gold with coloured inlay, one for the chest,
the other to hang behind as make-weight. Corslets
of this type are depicted commonly enough on the
monuments, and were evidently frequently worn, but
we have never before been lucky enough to find a
complete example. Unfortunately, the parts of it
were sadly scattered, and there were points in the
reconstruction of which we could not be absolutely
certain. Most of it was found in Box 54, but, as

173

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

we have already stated in Chapter VII, there were
also parts of it in the small gold shrine and in Boxes
101 and 115, and single pieces from it were found
scattered on the floor of the Antechamber, passage,
and staircase. It was interesting working out the
way in which it all fitted together, and the photo-
graphs on Plate XXXVIII show our tentative re-
construction.

In Plate XXXVII we see the corslet proper as it
lay in Box 54, resting upon a number of faience liba-
tion vases. This gave us the pattern and arrangement,
with its upper and lower bands of inlaid gold plaques,
and we were also able to recover from it its exact
height in two or three separate places, and the fact
that it was not the same height all the way round.
It showed us, besides, that the upper row of the collar
was joined on to the gold plaque brace bands, and
that the gold bars fitted at the shoulders to the
top of the brace bands. The exact order of the
collar was recovered from the parts found in the
gold shrine. The pectorals were also in the gold
shrine, lying beside the collar sections, and that they
actually fitted to the collar was proved by the curve
of their upper edges. There were other gold bars in
addition to those for the shoulders, and the per-
forated thread-holes in these, corresponding exactly
with the holes in the scales, showed that they must
have belonged to the corslet proper. These bars and
the shoulder-bars alike were held together by sliding
pins, to be adjusted after the corslet was in position.
Our present reconstruction is , purely a tentative one
put together for photographic purposes, but the only
really doubtful point in it is whether the gold bars
fit to the front and back of the corslet, as they are

>74

Work in the Laboratory

here shown, or to its sides. The reason we have
placed them in this position is that the bars are of
different sizes, and by no combination is it possible
to make the two equal lengths which the sides would
require. The front and back of the corslet, on the
other hand, we know were of different lengths. There
are still a number of pieces missing, and these we
hope may still tum up in the innermost chamber or
in the Annexe.

The greater part of our winter’s work in the
laboratory was concerned with the boxes, working
out and sorting over their confused jumble of con-
tents. The single, larger, objects were much easier
to deal with. Some were in very good condition,
requiring nothing but surface cleaning and noting,
but there were others which needed a certain amount
of attention, if only minor repairs to make them
fit for transport. In all our mending we had con-
stant recourse to our box of floor-sweepings, frag-
ments recovered by sweeping up and sifting the last
layer of dust from the floor both of the Antechamber
and entrance passage, and not infrequently we found
there the piece of inlay, or whatever it might be,
for which we were looking. The chariots we have
not yet made any attempt to deal with. That
must be done in Cairo later on, for they are in a
great many sections, and their sorting and treatment
will require very considerable working space — much
more space than we can possibly arrange for in
The Valley. As I explained earlier in the chapter,
the restoration and study of the material from this
tomb will provide work for all of us for many
years to come. In the field, preliminary work is as
much as we can hope to do.

■75

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

At the end of the season there came the question
of packing, always an anxious business, but doubly
so in this case owing to the enormous value of the
material. Protection from dust as well as from
actual damage was an important point, so every
object was completely wrapped in cotton- wool or
cloth, or both, before it was placed in its box. Deli-
cate surfaces, such as the parts of the throne, the
legs of the chairs and beds, or the bows and staves,
were swathed in narrow bandages, in case anything
should work loose in transit. Very fragile objects,
like the funerary bouquets and the sandals, which
would not bear ordinary packing, were laid in bran.
Great care was taken to keep the antiquities in strictly
classified groups, textiles all in one box, jewellery all
in another, and so on. There may well be a delay
of a year or two before some of the boxes are un-
packed, and it will be a great saving of time and
labour if all the objects of one type are in a single
box. Eighty-nine boxes in all were packed, but to
lessen the danger in transit these were enclosed
within thirty-four heavy packing-cases.

Then came the question of transport. At the
river bank a steam barge was waiting, sent by the
Department of Antiquities, but between the labora-
tory and the river stretched a distance of five and
a half miles of rough road, with awkward curves
and dangerous gradients. Three possibilities of trans-
port were open to us — camels, hand porterage and
Decauville railway, and we decided on the third as
least likely to jar the cases. They were loaded,
accordingly, on a number of flat cars, and by the
evening of May 13th they were ready to begin their
journey down The Valley, the road by which they

176

Plate XL

Work in the Laboratory

had passed, under such different circumstances, three
thousand years before.

At daybreak on the following morning the cars
began to move. Now, when we talk of railways the
reader must not imagine that we had a line laid down
for us all the way to the river, for a permanent way
would take many months to construct. We had,
on the contrary, to lay it as we went, carrying the
rails round in a continuous chain as the cars moved
forward. Fifty labourers were engaged in the work,
and each had his particular job, pushing the cars,
laying the rails, or bringing up the spare ones from
behind. It sounds a tedious process, but it is wonder-
ful how fast the ground can be covered. By ten
o’clock on the morning of the 15th — fifteen hours
of actual work — the whole distance had been accom-
plished, and the cases were safely stowed upon the
barge. There were some anxious moments in the
rough Valley-road, but nothing untoward happened,
and the fact that the whole operation was carried
out in such short time, and without any kind of
mishap, is a fine testimonial to the zeal of our work-
men. I may add that the work was carried out
under a scorching sun, with a shade temperature of
considerably over a hundred, the metal rails under
these conditions being almost too hot to touch.

On the river journey the cases were in charge of
an escort of soldiers supplied by the Mudir of the
Province, and after a seven-day journey all arrived
safely in Cairo. There we unpacked a few of the
more valuable objects, to be placed on immediate
exhibition. The rest of the cases remain stored in
the museum until such time as we shall be able to
take in hand the question of final restorations.

1 77

CHAPTER XI

The Opening of the Sealed Door

B Y the middle of February our work in the
Antechamber was finished. With the excep-
tion of the two sentinel statues, left for a
special reason, all its contents had been removed to
the laboratory, every inch of its floor had been swept
and sifted for the last bead or fallen piece of inlay,
and it now stood bare and empty. We were ready
at last to penetrate the mystery of the sealed door.

Friday, the 17th, was the day appointed, and
at two o’clock those who were to be privileged
to witness the ceremony met by appointment above
the tomb. They included Lord Carnarvon, Lady
Evelyn Herbert, H.E. Abd el Halim Pasha Suleman,
Minister of Public Works, M. Lacau, Director-General
of the Service of Antiquities, Sir William Garstin,
Sir Charles Cust, Mr. Lythgoe, Curator of the Egyptian
Department of the Metropolitan Museum, New York,
Professor Breasted, Dr. Alan Gardiner, Mr. Winlock,
the Hon. Mervyn Herbert, the Hon. Richard Bethel],
Mr. Engelbach, Chief Inspector of the Department
of Antiquities, three Egyptian inspectors of the
Department of Antiquities, the representative of
the Government Press Bureau, and the members of
the staff — about twenty persons in all. By a quarter
past two the whole company had assembled, so we
removed our coats and filed down the sloping passage
into the tomb.

178

The Opening of the Sealed Door

In the Antechamber everything was prepared and
ready, and to those who had not visited it since
the original opening of the tomb it must have pre-
sented a strange sight. We had screened the statues
with boarding to protect them from possible damage,
and between them we had erected a small plat-
form, just high enough to enable us to reach the
upper part of the doorway, having determined, as
the safest plan, to work from the top downwards.
A short distance back from the platform there was
a barrier, and beyond, knowing that there might
be hours of work ahead of us, we had provided chairs
for the visitors. On either side standards had been
set up for our lamps, their light shining full upon
the doorway. Looking back, we realize what a
strange, incongruous picture the chamber must have
presented, but at the time I question whether such
an idea even crossed our minds. One thought and
one only was possible. There before us lay the
sealed door, and with its opening we were to blot
out the centuries and stand in the presence of a
king who reigned three thousand years ago. My
own feelings as I mounted the platform were a
strange mixture, and it was with a trembling hand
that I struck the first blow.

My first care was to locate the wooden lintel
above the door : then very carefully I chipped away
the plaster and picked out the small stones which
formed the uppermost layer of the filling. The
temptation to stop and peer inside at every moment
was irresistible, and when, after about ten minutes’
work, I had made a hole large enough to enable me
to do so, I inserted an electric torch. An astonishing
sight its light revealed, for there, within a yard of

179

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

the doorway, stretching as far as one could see and
blocking the entrance to the chamber, stood what
to all appearance was a solid wall of gold. For the
moment there was no clue as to its meaning, so as
quickly as I dared I set to work to widen the hole.
This had now become an operation of considerable
difficulty, for the stones of the masonry were not
accurately squared blocks built regularly upon one
another, but rough slabs of varying size, some so
heavy that it took all one’s strength to lift them :
many of them, too, as the weight above was removed,
were left so precariously balanced that the least false
movement would have sent them sliding inwards to
crash upon the contents of the chamber below. We
were also endeavouring to preserve the seal-impres-
sions upon the thick mortar of the outer face, and
this added considerably to the difficulty of handling
the stones. Mace and Callender were helping me by
this time, and each stone was cleared on a regular
system. With a crowbar I gently eased it up, Mace
holding it to prevent it falling forwards ; then he
and I lifted it out and passed it back to Callender,
who transferred it on to one of the foremen, and so,
by a chain of workmen, up the passage and out of
the tomb altogether.

With the removal of a very few stones the mys-
tery of the golden wall was solved. We were at the
entrance of the actual burial-chamber of the king*
and that which barred our way was the side of an
immense gilt shrine built to cover and protect the
sarcophagus. It was visible now from the Ante-
chamber by the light of the standard lamps, and as
stone after stone was removed, and its gilded sur-
face came gradually into view, we could, as though

180

Plate XLII

SEALED DOORWAY TO THE SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER.
(Showing the reclosing of the plunderers’ hole at bottom.)

The Opening of the Sealed Door

by electric current, feel the tingle of excitement
which thrilled the spectators behind the barrier.
The photographs on Plates XLIII and XLIV, taken
during the progress of the work, will give the reader
some idea of what they actually saw. We who were
doing the work were probably less excited, for our
whole energies were taken up with the task in hand
— that of removing the blocking without an accident.
The fall of a single stone might have done irreparable
damage to the delicate surface of the shrine, so,
directly the hole was large enough, we made an
additional protection for it by inserting a mattress
on the inner side of the door-blocking, suspending it
from the wooden lintel of the doorway. Two hours
of hard work it took us to clear away the blocking,
or at least as much of it as was necessary for the
moment; and at one point, when near the bottom,
we had to delay operations for a space while we
collected the scattered beads from a necklace brought
by the plunderers from the chamber within and
dropped upon the threshold. This last was a terrible
trial to our patience, for it was a slow business, and
we were all of us excited to see what might be within ;
but finally it was done, the last stones were removed,
and the way to the innermost chamber lay open
before us.

In clearing away the blocking of the doorway
we had discovered that the level of the inner chamber
was about four feet lower than that of the Ante-
chamber, and this, combined with the fact that
there was but a narrow space between door and
shrine, made an entrance by no means easy to effect.
Fortunately, there were no smaller antiquities at
this end of the chamber, so I lowered myself down,

181

The Tomb of TuPankh'Amen

and then, taking one of the portable lights, I edged
cautiously to the corner of the shrine and looked
beyond it. At the corner two beautiful alabaster
vases blocked the way, but I could see that if these
were removed we should have a clear path to the
other end of the chamber ; so, carefully marking
the spot on which they stood, I picked them up —
with the exception of the king’s wishing-cup they
were of finer quality and more graceful shape than
any we had yet found — and passed them back to
the Antechamber. Lord Carnarvon and M. Lacau
now joined me, and, picking our way along the
narrow passage between shrine and wall, paying out
the wire of our light behind us, we investigated
further.

It was, beyond any question, the sepulchral cham-
ber in which we stood, for there, towering above us,
was one of the great gilt shrines beneath which kings
were laid. So enormous was this structure (17 feet
by 11 feet, and 9 feet high, we found afterwards)
that it filled within a little the entire area of the
chamber, a space of some two feet only separating
it from the walls on all four sides, while its roof,
with comice top and toms moulding, reached almost
to the ceiling. From top to bottom it was overlaid
with gold, and upon its sides there were inlaid panels
of brilliant blue faience, in which were represented,
repeated over and over, the magic symbols which
would ensure its strength and safety. Around the
shrine, resting upon the ground, there were a num-
ber of funerary emblems, and, at the north end, the
seven magic oars the king would need to ferry him-
self across the waters of the underworld. The walls
of the chamber, unlike those of the Antechamber,

18 2

Plate XLIII

OPENING OF THE SEALED DOORWAY TO THE SEPULCHRAL
CHAMBER: CARNARVON AND CARTER.

The Opening of the Sealed Door

were decorated with brightly painted scenes and
inscriptions, brilliant in their colours, but evidently
somewhat hastily executed.

These last details we must have noticed subse-
quently, for at the time our one thought was of
the shrine and of its safety. Had the thieves pene-
trated within it and disturbed the royal burial ?
Here, on the eastern end, were the great folding
doors, closed and bolted, but not sealed, that would
answer the question for us. Eagerly we drew the
bolts, swung back the doors, and there within was
a second shrine with similar bolted doors, and upon
the bolts a seal, intact. This seal we determined not
to break, for our doubts were resolved, and we could
not penetrate further without risk of serious damage
to the monument. I think at the moment we did
not even want to break the seal, for a feeling of
intrusion had descended heavily upon us with the
opening of the doors, heightened, probably, by the
almost painful impressiveness of a linen pall, decor-
ated with golden rosettes, which drooped above the
inner shrine. We felt that we were in the presence
of the dead King and must do him reverence, and
in imagination could see the doors of the successive
shrines open one after the other till the innermost
disclosed the King himself. Carefully, and as silently
as possible, we re-closed the great swing doors, and
passed on to the farther end of the chamber.

Here a surprise awaited us, for a low door, east-
wards from the sepulchral chamber, gave entrance
to yet another chamber, smaller than the outer ones
and not so lofty. This doorway, unlike the others,
had not been closed and sealed. We were able, from
where we stood, to get a clear view of the whole of

183

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

the contents, and a single glance sufficed to tell us
that here, within this little chamber, lay the greatest
treasures of the tomb. Facing the doorway, on the
farther side, stood the most beautiful monument
that I have ever seen — so lovely that it made one
gasp with wonder and admiration. The central por-
tion of it consisted of a large shrine-shaped chest,
completely overlaid with gold, and surmounted by a
cornice of sacred cobras. Surrounding this, free-
standing, were statues of the four tutelary goddesses of
the dead — gracious figures with outstretched protec-
tive arms, so natural and lifelike in their pose, so
pitiful and compassionate the expression upon their
faces, that one felt it almost; sacrilege to look at
them. One guarded the shrine on each of its four
sides, but whereas the figures at front and back kept
their gaze firmly fixed upon their charge, an addi-
tional note of touching realism was imparted by the
other two, for their heads were turned sideways,
looking over their shoulders towards the entrance,
as though to watch against surprise. There is a
simple grandeur about this monument that made an
irresistible appeal to the imagination, and I am not
ashamed to confess that it brought a lump to my
throat. It is undoubtedly the Canopic chest and
contains the jars which play such an important part
in the ritual of mummification.

There were a number of other wonderful things
in the chamber, but we found it hard to take them
in at the time, so inevitably were one’s eyes drawn
back again and again to the lovely little goddess
figures. Immediately in front of the entrance lay
the figure of the jackal god Anubis, upon his shrine,
swathed in linen cloth, and resting upon a portable

184

Plate XLIV

OPENING OF THE SEALED DOORWAY TO THE SEPULCHRAL
CHAMBER: CARTER AND MACE.

The Opening of the Sealed Door

sled, and behind this the head of a bull upon a stand
— emblems, these, of the underworld. In the south
side of the chamber lay an endless number of black
shrines and chests, all closed and sealed save one,
whose open doors revealed statues of Tut*ankh*Amen
standing upon black leopards. On the farther wall
were more shrine-shaped boxes and miniature coffins
of gilded wood, these last undoubtedly containing
funerary statuettes of the king. In the centre of
the room, left of the Anubis and the bull, there was
a row of magnificent caskets of ivory and wood,
decorated and inlaid with gold and blue faience,
one, whose lid we raised, containing a gorgeous
ostrich-feather fan with ivory handle, fresh and strong
to all appearance as when it left the maker’s hand.
There were also, distributed in different quarters of
the chamber, a number of model boats with sails
and rigging all complete, and, at the north side, yet
another chariot.

Such, from a hurried survey, were the contents
of this innermost chamber. We looked anxiously for
evidence of plundering, but on the surface there was
none. Unquestionably the thieves must have entered,
but they cannot have done more than open two or
three of the caskets. Most of the boxes, as has been
said, have still their seals intact, and the whole con-
tents of the chamber, in fortunate contrast to those
of the Antechamber and the Annexe, still remain in
position exactly as they were placed at the time of
burial.

How much time we occupied in this first survey
of the wonders of the tomb I cannot say, but it must
have seemed endless to those anxiously waiting in
the Antechamber. Not more than three at a time

185

H

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

could be admitted with safety, so, when Lord Car-
narvon and M. Lacau came out, the others came in
pairs : first Lady Evelyn Herbert, the only woman
present, with Sir William Garstin, and then the rest
in turn. It was curious, as we stood in the Ante-
chamber, to watch their faces as, one by one, they
emerged from the door. Each had a dazed, bewil-
dered look in his eyes, and each in turn, as he came
out, threw up his hands before him, an unconscious
gesture of impotence to describe in words the wonders
that he had seen. They were indeed indescribable,
and the emotions they had aroused in our minds
were of too intimate a nature to communicate, even
though we had the words at our command. It was
an experience which, I am sure, none of us who
were present is ever likely to forget, for in imagina-
tion — and not wholly in imagination either — we had
been present at the funeral ceremonies of a king
long dead and almost forgotten. At a quarter past
two we had filed down into the tomb, and when,
three hours later, hot, dusty, and dishevelled, we
came out once more into the light of day, the very
Valley seemed to have changed for us and taken
on a more personal aspect. We had been given the
Freedom.

February 17th was a day set apart for an inspec-
tion of the tomb by Egyptologists, and fortunately
most of those who were in the country were able
to be present. On the following day the Queen of
the Belgians and her son Prince Alexander, who had
come to Egypt for that special purpose, honoured
us with a visit, and were keenly interested in every-
thing they saw. Lord and Lady Allenby and a num-

186

The Opening of the Sealed Door

ber of other distinguished visitors were present on
this occasion. A week later, for reasons stated in
an earlier chapter, the tomb was closed and once
again re-buried.

So ends our preliminary season’s work on the
tomb of King Tut*ankh-Amen. Now as to that
which lies ahead of us. In the coming winter our
first task, a difficult and anxious one, will be the
dismantling of the shrines in the sepulchral chamber.
It is probable, from evidence supplied by the Rameses
IV papyrus, that there will be a succession of no fewer
than five of these shrines, built one within the other,
before we come to the stone sarcophagus in which
the king is lying, and in the spaces between these
shrines we may expect to find a number of beautiful
objects. With the mummy — if, as we hope and
believe, it remains untouched by plunderers — there
should certainly lie the crowns and other regalia of
a king of Egypt. How long this work in the sepul-
chral chamber will take we cannot tell at present,
but it must be finished before we tackle the inner-
most chamber of all, and we shall count ourselves
lucky if we can accomplish the clearing of both in
a single season. A further season will surely be
required for the Annexe with its confused jumble of
contents.

Imagination falters at the thought of what the
tomb may yet disclose, for the material dealt with
in the present volume represents but a quarter —
and that probably the least important quarter — of
the treasure which it contains. There are still many
exciting moments in store for us before we complete
our task, and we look forward eagerly to the work
that lies ahead. One shadow must inevitably rest

187

The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen

upon it, one regret, which all the world must share —
the fact that Lord Carnarvon was not permitted
to see the full fruition of his work ; and in the
completion of that work we, who are to carry it
out, would dedicate to his memory the best that
in us lies.

APPENDIX

DESCRIPTION OF THE OBJECTS
(Plates XL VI — LXXIX)

Plate XLVI

THE KING’S WISHINC-CUP IN ALABASTER (CALCITE)
OF LOTIFORM

The decoration of the bowl comprises a whorl of
calices and sepals in low relief. The handles consist
of lotus flowers and buds supporting the emblem of
‘‘Eternal Life.” Upon the bowl are the prenomen
and nomen of the king, and the legend around the
rim reads :

"May he lire, Horus ’Strong Bull fair of births,* the Two
Goddesses * Beautiful of ordinances, quelling the Two Lands/
Horus of Gold 4 Wearing the diadems and propitiating the
Gods/ The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two
Lands, Neb-Kheperu* Re, granted life ." 1

" Live thy Ko, and mayst thou spend millions of years, thou
lover of Thebes, sitting with thy face to the north wind, and
thy eyes beholding felicity." *

1 The titulary of Tutankh-Amea.

* The wish.

Plate XLVII

ALABASTER < CALOTTE) PERFUME VASE RESTING
UPON AN ORNAMENTAL STAND

It is flanked by the emblem of 44 Myriads of
Years, 9 * and the bindings of papyrus and lotus
which symbolize the union of the 44 Two Lands 99 or
Kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Plate XLVIH

ALABASTER (CALCITE) PERFUME VASE RESTING UPON
A TRELLIS- W ORK PEDESTAL

Like the preceding vase (Plate XLVII) it is
flanked by symbols of “Years” and the “Union
of the Kingdoms.” The inlaid bosses are of obsidian
— volcanic glass.

Plate XLIX

(a) ONE OF THE KING’S BEDS CARVED IN SOLID

EBONY WITH STRING MESH

The fore and hind legs are of feline type.

(b) The open-work foot panel, of ebony, ivory
and gold, represents BES and THOUERIS, the tute-
lary gods of the household.

x 93

Plate L

SCENE IN MINIATURE PAINTING UPON THE
RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF THE LID OF THE PAINTED
CASKET, No. 21

In the centre we see the king in his chariot
shooting desert fauna, among which can be identified
gazelle, hartebeest, wild-ass, ostrich, and striped
hyena, fleeing before His Majesty’s hounds. Behind
the king are represented his fan-bearers, courtiers
and body-guard. In the field are depicted desert
flora.

(See pp. 110-111.)

Pf.ATF

Platf LI

Plate LI

SCENE IN MINIATURE PAINTING? UPON THE
LEFT-HAND SIDE OF THE LID OF THE PAINTED
CASKET, No. 21

This is a similar composition to that in the pre-
ceding plate (L), but here Tut • ankh ? Amen hunts
lions and lionesses. The minuteness of detail, sense
of movement, and agonized expression of the dying
animals rank this miniature painting as the finest
of its kind, far surpassing Persian examples.

(See pp. 110-111.)

*95

Plate LII

SCENE IN MINIATURE PAINTING UPON THE LEFT
SIDE PANEL OF THE PAINTED CASKET, No. 21

Here Tut *ankh» Amen is represented in his war
chariot, slaughtering his Southern or African foes.
He is supported by fan-bearers, charioteers and bow-
men, and above him are the protective vultures of
NEKHEBET, and the Sun’s disk encircled by Royal
URAEI with pendant 44 ANKHS,” the symbols of life.

(See pp. 110-111.)

Il l ^l l d

Plate LIII

Plate LIII

SCENE IN MINIATURE PAINTING UPON THE RIGHT
SIDE PANEL OF THE PAINTED CASKET, No. 21

The scheme of ornamentation here is similar to
that on the left side panel (Plate LII), except that
theJking is represented slaughtering his Northern or
Asiatic enemies. The whole mass of this ornament,
like that of the left panel, is made up of multi-
tudinous human figures in every kind of action — and
magnificent action. The king is shown in his chariot,
drawing his bow, his sheaves of arrows rattling at
his sides, and the slain falling under him as before
a pestilence.

(See pp. 110-111.)

Plate LIV

SCENES UPON THE FRONT (a) AND BACK (») PANELS
OF THE PAINTED CASKET, No. 21

They depict the king as a sphinx trampling upon
his enemies. In the centre of each panel are the
two cartouches of Tut • ankh * Amen.

Plate LV

LARGE CEDAR-WOOD CASKET INLAID AND VENEERED
WITH EBONY AND IVORY
(No. 32)

The casket lias sliding poles to carry it by, fixed
in staples on the bottom.

199

Plate LVI

(a) AN ALABASTER (CALCITE) CASKET
(No. 40)

The ornamentation is deeply incised and filled in
with coloured pigments. The knobs are made of
polished obsidian — a natural volcanic glass.

(b) DECORATED GILT CASKET
(No. 44)

The panels of the lid and four sides of the box
are of blue faience overlaid with gilt gesso orna-
mentation. The devices on the side panels comprise
the prenomen and nomen of the king, with pendant
URAEI surmounted with sun-disks. On the lid are
the banner-names of the king, and on the front of
the casket are the symbols “ HEH ” of Eternity. The
knobs are of violet faience with cartouches of the
king inlaid in pale blue.

200

Plate LVII

(a) a solid ivory jewel box

(No. 54 ddd)

The knobs, hinges and feet casings are of gold.
Carved on the front are Horus-name, prenomen and
nomen of Tut. ankh* Amen.

(b) View showing on the back of the box a
column with lotus capital symbolizing Upper Egypt,

Plate LVm

THE LARGE VAULTED-TOP BOX (No. 101)

It is of painted wood and bears in front the
cartouches of Tut • ankh* Amen and that of his queen,
Ankh • es • en - Amen. It contained the king’s linen.

Plate LIX

A CHILD’S CHAIR
(No. 39)

This small chair, probably the king’s when a
child, is carved of ebony and inlaid with ivory. It
has antelope and floral devices of embossed gold on
the panels of the arms.

Plate LX

A CARVED CEDAR-WOOD CHAIR
(No. 87)

This magnificent cedar-wood chair has the
winged solar disk, angle pieces and studs in embossed
gold. The claws are of ivory, the foot-pieces
sheathed with gold and bronze. The open-work
gold-plated ornamentation between the seat and
rails, tom away by the plunderers, represented the
44 Union of Upper and Lower Egypt ” in the form of
lotus and papyrus flowers symbolizing the binding
together of these two countries.

Plate LX

Plate LXI

THE OPEN-WORK PANEL OF THE BACK OF THE
CARVED CEDAR-WOOD CHAIR, No. 87
(See Plate LX)

The carved open-work device comprises a central
figure of 44 HEH ” kneeling upon a 44 Nub ’’-sign sym-
bolizing 44 Golden Eternity.” In each hand are the
emblems of 44 Myriads of Years,” and on the right
arm hangs the 64 Ankh,” the symbol of 44 Life.” On
both sides of the central figure are the Horus-names
of the king, surmounted by the Horus-hawk
wearing the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, and
before it the royal cobra. Surmounting the figure
of “Golden Eternity” is the solar disk flanked by
the prenomen and nomen of Tut * ankh f Amen. On
the upper rail the winged solar disk is of embossed
sheet gold.

aos

Plate LXH

THE KING’S GOLDEN THRONE
(No. 91)

(See Plates II, LXIH and LXIV)

A magnificent chair of wood overlaid with sheet
gold and richly adorned with polychrome faience,
glass and stone inlay, of El Amaraa art. Its legs, of
feline form, are surmounted by lions 9 heads in
chased gold of beautiful simplicity. The arms are
formed of crowned and winged serpents supporting
with their wings the king’s cartouches, and between
the vertical bars which support the back there are
six protective URAEI carved in wood, gilt and inlaid,
with crowns and solar disks. The heads of these
serpents are of violet faience, the crowns of silver
and gold, and the disks of wood gilt. Behind, on the
back panel, is a scene in relief of papyrus rushes and
water-fowl (see Plate LXIV). On the front panel of
the back of the throne is a beautiful and unique
inlaid palace scene of the king and the queen (for
description see Plate II, and pp. 46 and 117). The
missing gold open-work device between the rail and
seat of the throne, wrenched away for the metal by
the tomb-robbers, consisted of papyrus and lotus
flowers bound to the central “ sma ’’-sign, and sym-
bolized the 64 Union of the Two Lands,” i.e. the
Kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Plate LXIII

THE KING S GOLDEN THRONE
(No. 91)

A magnificent chair of wood overlaid with sheet
gold and richly adorned with polychrome faience,
glass and stone inlay, of El Amarna art (see Plates
II, LXII and LX TV).

Plate LXIV

THE KING S GOLDEN THRONE
(No. 91)

A magnificent chair of wood overlaid with sheet
gold and richly adorned with polychrome faience,
glass and stone inlay, of El Amama art (see Plates
II, LXII and LXIH).

Platk LX IV

Plate LXV

(a) a large pendant scarab of gold and lapis

LAZULI BLUE GLASS

(b) BEZEL OF SCARAB

depicting the king between the god Atum (left) and
the sun-god Horus (right), the latter deity giving
Tut *ankh* Amen the symbol of life. Above the king
is the solar disk radiating life, and below is a decora-
tive device symbolical of the “Union of the Two
Kingdoms," Upper and Lower Egypt.

(c) A GOLD PENDANT

in the form of Khep eru • neb • Re, the first cartouche
of Tut* ankli* Amen. It is inlaid with carnelian and
coloured glass.

(d) THE CHASED BACK OF PENDANT (c)

209

Plate LXVI

(a) THE CENTRAL PECTORAL OF tHE CORSLET

The device represents Tut • ankh • Amen (in the
centre) being introduced by a god and goddess to
the Theban deity Amen.

(b) THE BACK PENDANT OF THE CORSLET OF GOLD
RICHLY INLAID

The device includes the winged “Kheper"-
beetle supporting the solar disk, and has the talons
and tail of the solar hawk holding symbols of life.
Pendant to the beetle are two royal cobras wearing
the White Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Crown
of Lower Egypt, and upon them hang the symbols
of life (see Plate XXXVTII, and pp. 116, 136 and 173).

Plate LXVII

(a) SEVEN FINGER-RINGS AND AN ORNAMENTAL
FINGER-RING BEZEL

These rings are of solid gold and are richly
decorated with inlay (see Plate XXX, and p. 138).

(b) GOLD BUCKLES OF OPEN-WORK SHEET GOLD,
WITH APPLIED PATTERN IN TINY GRANULES

One device is a hunting scene; in the other Tut-
ankh'Amen is seated upon his throne.

(See p. 114.)

Plate LXVIII

THE SMALL GOLDEN SHRINE

It is of nao8 shape upon a sled. The carved
woodwork is overlaid with sheet gold upon which
various scenes are chased.

(See Plate XXIX and pp. 46, 119-120.)

I’l.ATK 1AM1I

Plate LXIX

TWO CEREMONIAL WALKING-STICKS COVERED WITH
THIN GOLD FOIL

The heads, arms and feet of the African prisoners
are of ebony and are notable for their exquisite
carving.

2 13

Plate LXX

A CEREMONIAL WALKING-STICK

similar to those on the preceding Plate (LXIX). On
this stick are represented the two foes of the king,
symbolizing the Northern and Southern enemies of
Egypt. The Asiatic type (a) is of ivory, the African
type (b) is of ebony. They are unique in Egyptian
art.

(See p. 115.)

Plate LXXI

A STAFF AND STICK

(a) This staff is decorated with ornamental barks
and is inlaid with elytra of iridescent beetles.

(b) A curved-h andled stick, gilt and elaborately
decorated with coloured barks.

(See p. 115.)

Plate LXXII

STICKS AND WHIPS WITH ORNAMENTAL HANDLES
IN GOLD-WORK

The first stick on the left is of gold. The second,
a whip, is of ivory and has a long hieroglyphic
inscription. The ornamentation of the third (centre)
stick is in granulated gold-work. The other two are
of wood embellished with gold foil.

Pi. ati. I XX 11

Plate LXXIII
TWO STOOLS

(a) Red-wood trellis-work stool inlaid with ivory
and ebony.

(b) A wooden trellis-work stool painted white.

Plate LXXIV
TWO STOOLS

(a) An ornamental wooden stool painted white.
The open-work device is symbolical of the 44 Union
of the Two Kingdoms,” Upper and Lower Egypt.

(b) An ebony stool richly inlaid with ivory and
embellished with heavy gold mountings. The seat
of the stool is devised to represent an animal’s skin,
and the legs terminate in ducks’ heads.

Platk I.XXV

Plate LXXV

TORCH AND TORCH HOLDERS OF BRONZE AND
GOLD UPON WOODEN PEDESTALS

These are absolutely new in type, and one of
them has stiU its torch of twisted linen in position
in the oil-cup. Two of them had bowls for floating
wicks, now missing. Probably these were of gold
and were stolen by the tomb-thieves. On the left
lamp a small pottery bowl serves to show what they
were probably like.

( See p. 113.)

219

Plate LXXVI

THREE OF THE KING’S BOWS

This illustration shows only the detail of a section
of the bows. The upper two double bows are of
composite type and are decorated with ornamental
barks. The lower bow is of heavy gold and is
elaborately decorated with fine gold-work inlaid with
coloured stones and glass.

(See p. 113.)

on

Plate LXXVII

THREE OF THE KING’S BOWS

Details of the ends of the preceding bows shown
Plate LXXVI.

221

Plate LXXVm

TEXTILES OF APPLIED NEEDLEWORK

(a) Head ornament in the form of hawks’ wings
and decorated with gold sequins.

(b) A portion of robe with applied needlework
decoration and embellished with gold sequins.

(See p. 171.)

222

Pl.ATI LWVI1I

-*•00 approach

SKETCHPLAN OF THE TOMB

223

INDEX

Abd el Aziz Bey Yehia visits the
tomb, 106

Abd el Halim Pasha Suleman, 178
Abd-el-Rasuls, family of, discover
royal tombs, 69, 70
Ahmes, King, reburial of, 59
Akh-en-Aten, 41
cache of, 74, 95
death of, 42

photography in cache of, 12/
Alabaster jars in antechamber of
tomb, 110, 115, 121
jars, a cache of, 83
libation vases, 113, 116, 136
sarcophagus of Seti I, 68, 69
statuette, an unnamed, 77
vases, 99, 104, 114
wishing-cup, a, 110
Alexander, Prince, inspects tomb, 186
Allenby, Lady, visits the tomb, 106,
186

Allenby, Lord, invited to visit the
tomb, 106

witnesses opening of sealed door,
186

Amen-em*heb, cemetery thief, 58
Amen-hetep I, reburial of, 59
tomb of, 52, 75
Amen-hetep II, King, 50
arrest of desecrators of tomb of, 73
his tomb opened : a discovery, 72
reburial of royal mummies in tomb
of, 60, 72

Amen-hetep III, desecration of his
tomb, 59

tomb cleared by author, 79
Amen -lueses, tomb of, 64
Anchorites, a colony of, in the Valley,
62

Ankh-es-en-pa-Aten, Princess, her letter
to the King of the Hittites, 47
intrigues of, 47, 48
maiden name of, 46
marries Tut-ankh-Amen, 43
representations of, on tomb furniture,
46

the Boghozkeui tablets and, 47

Annexe of tomb, confused condition of,
104, 134, 138

Antechamber of tomb, a partition
wall in, 112

a survey of the, 110 et seq.
an inner sealed door in, 101, 102
appearance of, on opening of sealed
door, 179

difficulty of clearing, 123
inspection of, 101

partial reparation of, after tomb-
robbery, 139, 140
plundering of, 134, 135
preliminary photographs of, 127
size of, 110

Ay, King, and the burial of Tut*ankh*
Amen, 44

Court Chamberlain, 43

tomb of, discovered and cleared, 68

B

Baksheesh system, advantages of,
154

Bandits in the valley, 64, 65
Bead-work, Egyptian love of, 159
Beads, re-stringing and re-threading,
160

Bed, a wooden, 115
of ebony and woven cord, 113
Beds, Egyptian, construction of, 113
Belgians, Queen of the, inspects tomb
186

Belzoni, and his hydraulic wheel, 67
considers he has exhausted possi-
bility of further discoveries, 68
76

death of, 69

Egyptian researches of, 67
exhibits his Egyptian treasures, 69
his account of experiences in Egypt,
68

his excavations in Egypt, 67, 68
Bethel!, Hon. Richard, witnesses open-
ing of sealed door, 178

225

Index

Biban-el-Meluke, the gate or court of
the kings, 63, 64
Boghozkeui, ruins of, 47
Boomerangs, electrum, 116
Bouquets of flowers or leaves, 99
Bows and arrows, 113, 114, 121
Box, a painted, 104
of ebony and painted wood, 114
of ivory and ebony veneer, 115
shrine-shaped, with double doors, 119
with incised ornamentation, 114
Boxes, oviform, 99
Breasted, Professor, “ Ancient Records
of Egypt” of, 58, 59
deciphers seal impressions, 109
witnesses opening of sealed door, 178
British Museum, a Memnion bust in,
67

Bruce, and Theban bandits, 65, 66
researches of, in tomb of Rameses
III, 66

Brugsch Bey, Emile, investigations at
Deir el Bahari, 71, 72
Buckle of sheet gold, 114
Burchardt, Belzoni and, 67
Burghclere, Lady, biographical sketch
of Lord Carnarvon by, 1 et seq.
Burton, Harry, of Metropolitan Mu-
seum, New York, 108, 109, 127,
130

work in the Valley, 69

C

Cabinets, note-card, 164
Cairo Museum, a stela in, 45
exhibits from tomb in, 150
royal mummies in, 72
treasures awaiting final restoration
in, 176

Calcite wine-strainer, a, 116
Callender, A. R., his work in the tomb,
92, 93, 101, 107, 130, 180
joins Howard Carter, 91
Candle tests for foul gas, 95
Canopic chest and jars, 184
Canopy, a travelling, 120
Carnarvon, Lady, excavation work in
the Valley, 85

Carnarvon, Lord, biographical sketch
of, 1 et seq.
death of, 188

enters the tomb, 101, 182, 186
his concession in the Valley, 75
replies to Mr. Carter's cable, 91
witnesses opening of sealed door, 178

Casket, a painted wooden, and its
contents, 110, 111, 166 et seq .
how it w as treated, 164 et seq.
removed from tomb, 130
with decorative panels, 113
Caskets, painted and inlaid, 99
Cemetery guardians connive at tomb-
plundering, 52, 55
Cemetery thieves, trial of, 58
Chair, a carved cedar wood, 116
a miniature, 114
a rush-work, 115

of ivory, gold, wood and leather
work, 104

with decorative panels of ebony,
ivory and gold, 114
Champollion, work in the Valley, 69
Chariots, 99, 120, 130, 131, 132
Chest, an underlinen, 116
of ebony, ivory and red wood, 114
Cloak, an imitation leopard-skin, 171
Cloth, treatment of, 167
Collarettes and necklaces, 114, 116
Collars of Tell el Amama leaf and
flower type, 173
Composite animal couch, 116
Corslet, a remarkable, 116, 120
reconstruction of, 173, 174
Couches, animal-sided, 98, 99, 112 et
seq., 130, 131

Cow-headed couch, 112, 115
Cups, faience, 116

Cust, Sir Charles, witnesses opening of
sealed door, 178

D

Daoud Pasha, Mudir of Keneh, and a
thief, 71

and the Abd-cl-Rasuls, 70
Davis, Theodore, and burial place of
Tutankh-Amen, 77
excavations in the Valley by, 73, 79
relinquishes his concession, 76
D^cauville railway, transport by, 176
Deir el Bahari, mummy of Thothmes I
removed to, 53

removal of other kings to, 60, 69
royal mummies found by the Abd-
el-Rasuls, 69, 70
secret passage to, 64
Descending passage, discovery of a, 9
” Description of the East,” Pococke'a,
63

Devilliers, M., and tomb of Amen
hetep, 79

226

inaex

Drah Abu’l Negga foot-hills, tomb of
Amen*hetep I on, 52, 75
Drovetti quarrels with Belzoni, 68
Duck-stools, folding, 114

E

Egypt and Asia, intermarriages be-
tween royal houses of, 47

Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, Belzoni’ s
exhibition in, 69

Egyptian monarchs, their love of
ostentation, 51, 52

Egyptian State Railway, courtesy of,
109

Egyptians, their conception of burial,
51

Egyptologists inspect the tomb, 186

Ehenefer, cemetery thief, 58

Electric light installed in tomb, 98,
101, 127

Engelbach, Mr., Chief Inspector of
Department of Antiquities, 93,
101, 178

Excavation, importance of photo-
graphing surveying work in, 150

Excavator, life of the, 124, 125, 153
et seq.

F

Facade tombs of Middle Kingdom,
' 63 (note)

Faience cup, Tut-ankhAmen’s, 77
rings, a pad of, 140
vases, 104, 135, 136
Field-work and its importance, 125,
152

" Five Years’ Explorations at Thebes,”
by Lord Carnarvon and Howard
Carter, 75

Fly- whisk, horse-hair, 121
Food offerings, discovery of, 115
Funeral bouquets, 110, 124
Funerary material, a cache of, 78
Funerary temples, alteration in dis-
position of, 52, 53
and their use, 52, 53

G

Gaming board, a, 104
Gardiner, Dr. Alan, 109
witnesses opening of sealed door-
way, 178

Garstin, Sir William, and removal of
body of Amen-hetep, 72
enters the tomb, 186
invites author to excavate for Lord
Carnarvon, 75

witnesses opening of sealed door, 178
Gauntlet, an archer’s, 171
German expedition to the Valley, 69
Gesso, method of fixing to wood, 159
Glass vases, 114

Gold rings in a fold of cloth, 114, 138

H

Hall, Mr., draughtsman to American
expedition, 108, 109, 130
Hapi, cemetery thief, 58
Harness of chariots, 121, 132
Hat-shep-sflt, Queen, sarcophagus in-
tended for, 81
tomb of, 53, 73, 82
Hauser, Mr., draughtsman to Amer-
ican expedition, 108, 109, 130
Hay, work in the Valley, 69
Head, work in the Valley, 69
Head-rest, a gilt. 111, 167, 170
Head-shawls and their use, 138
Herbert, Hon. Mervyn, witnesses open-
ing of sealed door, 178
Herbert, Lady Evelyn, 92, 186
enters the tomb, 101
witnesses opening of sealed door,
178

Hermits in Valley of the Kings, 62
Hittites, King of the, and Tutankh*
Amen’s widow, 47, 48
Hor-em heb, King, orders “ renewal of
burial ” of Thothmes IV, 54
supplants Ay, 44
tomb of, 74

Hydraulic wheel introduced into Egypt,
67

I

Ibraham Effendi, an official inspec-
tion of Antechamber by, 101
Ineni constructs hidden tomb of
Thothmes I, 53

Inhapi, Queen, reburial of Seti I and
Rameses II in tomb of, 60
Intermarriages between royal houses
of Egypt and Asia, 47
Iramen, cemetery thief, 58

227

Index

j

Jars, alabaster, 83, 110, 115, 121
pottery, 77

K

Karnak temples, restorations of, 45
Kemwese, cemetery thief, 58
Khamwese, vizier of Thebes, 56, 58
King's mannequin, a, 120
Kurna, tomb-robbers of, 70
Kurna hills, a midnight climb of, 80
bandits of, 64

L

Laboratory work, why necessary,
151 et seq.

Lacau, M., Director-General of Service
of Antiquities, 178, 182, 186
inspects the tomb, 106

Leopard-skin priestly robe, 113

Lepsius survevs Valley of the Kings,
69

Libation vase of alabaster, 113
vases of blue faience, 116, 136

Limestone, 162

Lion-headed couch, 112, 113

Lisht, pyramid field, American ex-
cavations on, 108

Loret, M., opens up royal tombs, 72,
84

Lotiform cup of translucent alabaster,

99

Lucas, Mr., Director of Chemical
Department of Egyptian Govern-
ment, 108, 109, 130

Luxor, tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen dis-
covered at, 90

Lythgoe, Mr., Curator of Egyptian
Department, Metropolitan Mu-
seum, New York, 107, 178

M

Makt-Aten, Princess, death of, 43
Mannequin, a, and its use, 120
Maspero, Sir Gaston (Director of An-
tiquities Department), 75, 76
advises against further investiga-
tions in the Valley, 76
Medinet Habu, Temple of, 76
Menpehti-Re, King ( see Rameses I)

Mentu*her*khepesh*ef, tomb of, 68
Mer-en*Ptah, tomb of, 64, 69
Mert-Aten, Princess, marriage of, 42
Merton, Mr., Times correspondent, and
the official opening of tomb, 106,
141

Meryt-Re-Hat*shep-sfit, Queen, 84
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, co-operation of, 108
Jars from the Valley in, 77
Mohammed Ali, Belzoni and, 67
Mohamed Bey Fahmy visits the
tomb, 106

Monuments, magnificence of, 51
Mourning for the dead, Egyptian
manner of, 72

Mummies, costly outfit of, 51, 54
Mystery, Egyptian love of, 154

N

Napoleon, his Commission d’ftgypte,
66, 79

Necklace, a double, of faience beads,
171

an elaborate, 120

Necropolis seal, the royal, 78, 89, 90,
92

Needlework, applied, examples of,
discovered, 172

Nefertiti, wife of Akh-en-Atcn, 43

New York expedition, generous help
from, 108

Newspaper correspondents visit the
Valley, 142

Norden's description of Theban bandits,
65

Note-cards of objects found in tomb,
164

O

Osman Bey essays to curb activities
of Theban bandits, 65
Osorkon 1, 61
Ostraca, discovery of, 83

Packing, question of, 176
Papyrus, treatment of, 161
" Papyrus sandals of His Majesty,"
171

223

Index

Paraffin wax, melted, advantages of,
166

Paynezem, High Priest of Amen, 59
Pectoral of corslet, 136
Pendants, a collar of, 140
Perfume Jars in carved alabaster, 115
Peser, Mayor of Thebes, 56-58
Pewero, guardian of necropolis at
Thebes, 56, 57

Philetairos, son of Ammonios, inscribes
his name in a tomb, 61
Photography, a dark room in a tomb,
127

indoor, 157

value of, in excavation work, 155
Pit-tomb, contents of a, 77
Pococke, Richard, “ A Description of
the East ” by, 63 et seq.

Pottery Jars, a cache of, 77
Preservatives for objects taken from
tomb, 109, 124, 126, 130, 148, 152,
153

Press representatives visit the tomb,
109

Priestesses buried in Valley of the
Kings, 61

Pyramids, the entrance passage, and
how concealed, 51

R

Rameses I, tomb of, discovered by
Belzoni, 68

Rameses II, “ colossal Memnion bust ”
of, 67

desecration of his tomb, 59
reburial of, 59, 60
tomb of, cleared by Lepsius, 68
Rameses III, tomb of, 59, 64, 66
Rameses IV, papyrus, 187
tomb of, 64, 83
Rameses VI, tomb of, 64, 85, 87
Rameses IX, tomb-robbery in reign of,
55

Rameses XI, tomb of, 64
Rameses XII, tomb of, 64
Rawlinson, researches of, 69
Rhind, explores Valley of Kings, 69
Rings, gold, in a fold of cloth, 114, 138
Robes, royal, in painted casket (No.
21), 111, 167

ornamentation of. 111, 168
Rock-hewn passages, classical refer-
ences to, 61

Rosellini, researches of, 69
Royal monuments, unavailing efforts
for safeguarding, 51

Royal necropolis seal, the, 78, 89, 90,
92

Royal tombs, desecration of ( see
Tomb-robbery)

S

Salt, Mr., British Consul-General in
Egypt, Belzoni and, 67, 69
explores the Valley, 69
Sandals, bead, 121, 123
Court, 111

leather, gold-decorated, 170
preservative treatment of, 123, 124
rush and papyrus, 167, 170
Sarcophagus, an alabaster, discovered
by Belzoni, 68
exhibited in London, 69
of crystalline sandstone, 81
Scarab of gold and lapis-lazuli, 114
of Thothmes III, 93
Sceptre, a golden, 114
Seal, Tut-ankh-Amen’s, 90, 92, 103
Sealed doorway, a second, 95

passage debris removed from, 92, 93,
95

seal impressions on, 95
Sealed doorway discovered, 88
investigations of, 92 et seq.
secured against interference, 90
Sealed doorway to sepulchral chamber,
opening of the, 178 et seq.
sentinel figures guarding, 99, 101,
112, 184

Sealings, clay, 78
noted and photographed, 93
Sen-nefer, appropriates a royal tomb,
84

Sentinel statues, 99, 101, 112, 184
Sepulchral monuments, an unusual
entry on walls of Tut*ankh*Amen's
tomb, 44
Set-nekht, 64

Seti I, Belzoni's discovery in tomb of,
68

his tomb desecrated : and reburial
of, 59, 60

Seti II, laboratory work in tomb of,
129, 162
tomb of, 60, 64

Shawabti statuette of Tut *ankh -Amen,
120

Shrine within the sepulchre, the, 180
et seq.

Shrines, black, 99
emblematic, 114

229

Index

Si-Ptah, tomb of, 74
Sickle flints, 152

Sistra (musical instruments), 115
Smenkhka-Re, King, husband of
Mert-Aten, 42

Soane Museum, the, sarcophagus from
tomb of Seti I in, 68
Staircase in the rock discovered, 87,
92

Statues in Tutankh-Amen’s tomb, 99,
101, 112, 184
Staves, 99, 113

Steel gate for door of chamber, 106,
107, 109, 129

Stela of Tut-ankhAmen usurped by
Hor em heb, 45 (note)

Sticks, 115, 121

Stone, laboratory treatment of, 161
Stool, a plain wood, painted white,
119

a rush-work, 116
an ornamental white, 115
of ebony and red wood, 115
of ebony, ivory and gold, 119
Surveying* in excavation work, im-
portance of, 150

T

Tapestry weaving, examples of, 172
Ta usert, 64

Tell el Amarna, Art of, 118, 120
death of Akh-en-Aten at, 42
removal of Court from, 45
Temperature, effect of, on objects from
the tomb, 165

Temple restorations at Thebes, 45
Textiles, variable condition of, 159
Theban bandits, 64 et seq. ( cf . Tomb-
robbery)

Thebes, Court removed to, 45
prefatory work at, 82 et seq.
rainstorms of, 133

Thothmes I, tomb of, 50, 52, 53, 61, 72
Thothmes II, reburial of, 59
Thothmes III, 41
a scarab of, 93

an interesting archaeological fact
concerning, 84
gold statuette of, 137
tomb of, 72, 84

Thothmes IV, designs tomb of Amen-
hetep III, 79

examples of tapestry weaving in
tomb of, 172
tomb of, 54, 73

Throne, a golden inlaid, 99
a remarkable, and its historical im-
portance, 117 et seq.
representations of Tut-ankh-Amen's
wife on back of, 46
Thua, tomb of, 74
Times , the, reports official opening of
tomb, 106

selected for publication of informa-
tion, 143

Toilet table, a, 115
Tomb design, a new theory of, 51
Tomb-robbery, 52, 54, 55 et seq., 70, 72,
73, 79, 80, 102, 104
evidence of, 54, 133 et seq.
precautions against, 51
robbers surprised at work, 80
temptations of, 55
trial of robbers, 58
Tomb-work, importance of immediate
notes on, 162

Tombs, Valley, Pococke’s description
and plans of, 64

Torch-holders, bronze and gold, 113
Tottenham, Mr., oflicial inspection of
tomb by, 106

Transport of tomb treasures, how
accomplished, 176 et seq.

“ Travels in Egypt and Nubia,"
Norden's, 65

“ Travels to Discover the Source of
the Nile," Bruce’s, 65, 66
Turin papyrus, the, 161
Tut ankh Amen, burial ceremonies of,
44

changes his religion, 45
interesting evidence as to age of, 171,
172

marriage of, 41, 43

oflicial opening of his tomb, 106

parentage of, 41

paucity of information regarding, 45,
46

probable site of tomb, 82
religion of, 45, 118, 119
restores temples at Thebes, 45
tomb of, 52, 54, 60, 87 et seq., 92, 93
Tyi, Queen, 43, 95

sepulchral shrine of, 74, 79
Tyi, wife of Ay, 43

U

Underlinen, a chest of, 110
Usermarc-Sctepnere, King (see Rameses

H)

230

Index

v

Valley of the Tombs of the Kings,
the, 50

American excavators in, 73
anchorites in possession of, 62
bandits in, 64 et seq.

Belzoni's excavations in, 68
commencement of campaign in, 82
concession granted to Lord Carnar-
von and Mr. Carter, 76
finding of Tut-ankh* Amen's tomb,
in, 87 et seq.

first tomb constructed in, 50, 61
German expedition to, 69
how guarded, after discovery of
tomb, 126

Pococke's description of approach
to, 63 el seq.

rock-hewn passages of, 61
starting point of operations in, 82
et seq.

Vandalism, a charge of, disproved, 73

Vases, alabaster, 99, 104, 114
faience, 104, 135, 136
glass, 114

libation, 113, 116, 136

Visitors, an influx of, and reflections
. thereon, 143 et seq.

W

Walls of tombs, a reprehensible prac-
tice, 61

Water skins, discovery of, 94
Wax, paraflin, as preservative, 166
Whip, an ivory, 115
Wilkinson numbers the tombs in the
Valley, 69

Wine-strainer, a calcite, 116
Winlock, Mr., director of New York
excavations, 77, 108, 178
Wishing-cup. an alabaster, 110
Wood, preservation of, 158
Wooden cases containing food offerings,
115

Woodwork, problems of, 158 et seq.

Y

Yua, tomb of, 74

231

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